by John Nichol
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Flight Sergeant Tom McLean had already completed a tour flying Halifax bombers with 102 Squadron and was on his very first op with 617 Squadron.20 Just under six feet tall, with a shock of curly hair, he had a lean, rangy build and a broken nose as a souvenir from one of a number of occasions when he’d settled an argument with his fists, not his words. A dour Scot from Paisley and a boxer who had represented the RAF, he was not always the easiest of companions, but there was probably nobody in Bomber Command who had thought so deeply about German fighter tactics and the operational gunnery techniques to counter them, nor shown such expertise in putting theory into practice.
He studied, and relentlessly practised, every aspect of air-to-air gunnery, including range estimation, accurate sighting and deflection shooting (aiming ahead of a moving target so that the bullet and target arrive at the same place at the same time), and he worked closely with the pilot and the other gunners in his crew on evasion tactics, which they then practised assiduously on training flights. His attention to detail covered every aspect of air gunnery and he even assembled his own ammunition belts, believing that the standard Bomber Command ‘mix’ of successive ball, tracer, incendiary and armour-piercing rounds was less effective than a mix of 40 per cent tracer and 60 per cent armour-piercing.
McLean proved the effectiveness of his methods during a night raid on Mannheim on 6 December 1942. He was the rear gunner of a Halifax when a Junkers Ju 88 night-fighter opened fire, wounding McLean in the left hand. He and the mid-upper gunner immediately returned fire, riddling the port engine and wing of the fighter and sending it spiralling down in flames. Two more fighters then launched a coordinated attack, but both gunners again returned fire, destroying another of the enemy aircraft and forcing the last one to break off the attack. The Halifax carried on to its target, and on its return to base both McLean and his fellow gunner were awarded immediate DFMs.
During his tour with 102 Squadron, McLean had confirmed ‘kills’ on five enemy fighters, with a sixth unconfirmed one, and his exploits made him the subject of a profile in the Daily Mirror under the cringe-making headline ‘They Call This Gunner “Killer”.’21 No one ever had before, but his crewmates took great delight in calling him ‘Killer’ after that!
His successes in air combat had vindicated his theories, but his attempts to convince senior officers of their merits proved less successful. When he suggested to his squadron’s gunnery officer that other gunners should switch to his mix of tracer and armour-piercing rounds, he was told that the make-up of ammunition belts had been decided by the Central Gunnery School and could not be altered on the word of a mere air gunner – and an NCO, to boot – and in any case too high a mix of tracer would damage the rifling of the gun barrels. When McLean countered that gun barrels were easier to replace than dead aircrew and shot-down bombers, he was dismissed with a waft of the officer’s hand. Astonishingly for the era, he simply went over the senior officer’s head by writing a paper outlining his experimental methods and the results he obtained and sending it to the Group Gunnery Leader, but the only reply was a stern reprimand, reminding him of the absolute necessity of only submitting correspondence through ‘the proper channels’.
After ending his thirty-op tour with 102 Squadron, he was posted to RAF Alness in Invergordon as a gunnery instructor with Coastal Command. His generally ‘awkward’ reputation may have contributed to the decision to send him to what must have seemed to him the British equivalent of Siberia. Other men might have been delighted at such a cushy posting, far from the heat of Bomber Command’s battles over Germany, but McLean, who had arrived at Alness eager to impart his knowledge to other air gunners, became so frustrated and so furious at the indifference of his commander and the other permanent staff that he was even contemplating deserting when the chance to join 617 Squadron presented itself. A former comrade, who had served under Leonard Cheshire, urged McLean to write to him, listing his expertise and achievements and applying to join the squadron.
It was unusual for men to apply to 617 Squadron, but Cheshire at once saw in McLean’s letter the expert knowledge and passionate commitment that could add an even keener cutting edge to his squadron, and within five days of writing it, McLean was on his way to Woodhall Spa. To such a man, the maverick atmosphere of 617 Squadron, where room could be made for any ‘difficult’ character as long as he had sufficient expertise in the business of flying and fighting, was as welcome as a warm fire on a cold winter’s night.
Cheshire paired McLean with a crew of ‘wild colonial boys’ led by a Canadian pilot, Flying Officer Bill Duffy. McLean’s ideas on evasion and counter-attack tactics against night-fighters were warmly welcomed by Duffy, and they practised them in a series of training flights. The problem for all air gunners facing German night-fighters was that the effective range of their Browning .303 machine guns was only 300 yards, whereas the fighter’s 20mm cannon could be lethal from twice that range. As a result, German fighter pilots could lay off out of the Browning’s range and direct cannon fire into the bomber they were targeting in perfect safety. When targeted by a predatory fighter, McLean’s solution was for his pilot to lure the fighter into the Browning’s effective range by combining the traditional ‘corkscrew’ evasive manoeuvre with a violent deceleration. The pursuing fighter pilot would normally expect a bomber to accelerate in an attempt to escape, and by the time he realised that he was suddenly closing on his prey at twice the expected rate, the Lancaster’s gunners would be opening up on him. As soon as Duffy heard the thunder of his own aircraft’s guns, he was free to ‘pile the coal on again’, pushing the throttles wide open and accelerating away.
They practised the manoeuvre repeatedly on training flights over the Wash, with McLean constantly urging Duffy into ever more violent corkscrews and savage decelerations. Their first chance to test how effective their system would be under combat conditions came in the raid on the Woippy aero-engine factory, just north-west of Metz, on the night of 15 March 1944.
On their outward flight, they crossed the Channel coast at Beachy Head, and soon afterwards McLean and the mid-upper gunner, ‘Red’ Evans, test-fired their guns into the grey waters below them. McLean had personally loaded his ammunition belts that afternoon, filling them with his patent tracer/armour-piercing mix, and he and Evans kept a constant watch on their sectors of the sky, Evans checking the port and starboard beams while McLean, in his rear-facing seat, scanned the sky behind them, the most likely source of attack.
They were only half an hour from Woippy when they received a ‘boomerang’ recall order because of dense cloud cover over the target, giving them no chance of accurate bombing. At once, Duffy banked the Lancaster around and headed for the safety of home.
Soon afterwards the wireless operator reported that he was picking up a signal from the aircraft’s Monica set – radar warning equipment that alerted the crew to enemy aircraft approaching from the rear – indicating an aircraft about 1,200 yards off the port quarter. (Monica was withdrawn in summer 1944 when the RAF discovered that the Germans had a radar receiver that could home in on it.) McLean raked the area with his gaze until he spotted a dim shape faintly outlined against the night sky. It appeared to be a four-engined aircraft, and Duffy and most of the other members of the crew relaxed, believing it was another Lancaster, but there was something about its profile that rang alarm bells in McLean’s head and he kept his gaze fixed on it.
He had a further cause for alarm when Duffy gave Red Evans permission to leave his post in the mid-upper turret to use the Elsan toilet at the rear of the aircraft. If the following aircraft turned out to be a fighter, McLean would have to fight it off single-handed until Evans returned to his post, and since Evans had to disconnect his intercom on leaving the turret, there would be no way to recall him until the thunder of guns gave the alarm.
McLean kept staring at the dark shape. It was steadily closing on them, and within a few more seconds he was sure. He flicked his microphone switch
. ‘Skip, that’s not a Lanc following us, it’s two enemy fighters in formation! They’re out on the port quarter at about nine hundred yards! Prepare to corkscrew port!’22
The wireless operator then stood up in the astrodome and spotted a third fighter, a Messerschmitt 109, flying about 500 yards off the port beam with its white navigation lights flashing. It seemed to McLean that it was serving both as a distraction to the bomber crew and as a visual reference point for the other fighters, in case they lost the bomber while manoeuvring in the darkness. A moment later one of the two fighters behind them launched its attack. McLean waited a couple of seconds and then shouted, ‘Go!’ Duffy at once threw the Lancaster into a violent corkscrew to port, while McLean hunched over his guns, taking up the first pressure on the triggers as he waited for the Messerschmitt to come within range.
The fighter, an Me 110, opened up with its machine guns and cannon from about 650 yards away. The cannon fire passed over McLean’s turret but the machine-gun bullets shattered some of the Perspex of his turret and chewed their way through the rear fuselage.
Fortunately for Evans, he had leapt off the Elsan and begun to battle his way back to his turret as soon as Duffy had thrown the aircraft into its corkscrew. Had he remained where he was a few seconds longer, he would have been cut to pieces by the machine-gun fire.
The fighter closed to within 500 yards, then made a diving turn to port and took up station alongside its companion again, but a few moments later it returned to the attack. McLean called for another corkscrew to port and the violent deceleration they had practised so often. This time, perhaps encouraged by the lack of gunfire from the Lancaster, the fighter closed to within 300 yards. Even though Evans had not yet returned to his turret, it was the chance McLean had been waiting for. As the Lancaster’s violent evasion again saw the fighter’s cannon fire passing harmlessly over the top of the fuselage, McLean opened fire, the clatter of the spent casings drowned in the thunder from the Browning’s quadruple barrels. He saw the streams of tracer burning their way across the fighter’s port wing and engine as the armour-piercing rounds tore it apart. Within seconds flames and black smoke were belching from the engine. The damaged fighter was still closing, however, and McLean called ‘Drop!’ into his mic and then put a few more short bursts into the fighter’s cockpit. At once the Me 110 reared up and then plunged down in a death-spiral, still trailing smoke and flames.
The danger was far from over, and McLean at once switched his gaze, locking on to the second enemy fighter, still lurking on the port quarter. Evans had now struggled back into his turret, announcing his presence with a startled exclamation of ‘Jesus!’, followed by a burst of tracer at the Me 109, which was still showing its navigation lights. In a few terse words over the radio, McLean explained the situation and drew Evans’s attention to the Me 110 to the rear, telling him to hold fire until he himself had opened up.
The Me 110 launched its attack by flipping onto its back, then curving in towards the Lancaster as Duffy threw it into yet another vicious corkscrew. The fighter kept coming, closing to a suicidal 250 yards. Both aircraft opened fire simultaneously but the Messerschmitt’s cannon fire again passed above McLean’s turret, whereas his Browning stitched an unerring line right along the underbelly of the fighter. Red Evans’s guns now also found their mark. The fighter’s momentum carried it above the Lancaster, but McLean swung his gun barrels to cover it and put another short burst directly into the cockpit. The pilot’s head was outlined for a moment by the fierce glow of the tracer and then his aircraft broke up in mid-air. A series of internal explosions blew it apart as it fell to earth.
The Me 109 was still holding station, suggesting the danger was not yet past, and soon afterwards McLean spotted yet another Me 110 ranging up on the port quarter and then dropping in almost directly astern at a range of 700 yards. As Duffy saw a bank of cloud ahead and below them, and accelerated towards it, he triggered the fighter’s attack. On McLean’s shouted order of ‘Go!’ Duffy abandoned the attempt at concealment and launched a corkscrew to starboard, then on the command ‘Drop!’ he jerked back the throttles. The Lancaster must have appeared to stop dead in the sky to the fighter pilot, and as he overshot, his own cannon missed the mark, leaving him exposed to McLean’s pitiless fire. The Brownings spat a line of tracer and armour-piercing rounds that raked the fighter from nose to tail. Its port fuel tanks erupted in a fireball, and flames also gouted from the starboard engine. McLean ceased fire, knowing his adversary was already finished. He had momentary glimpses of sparks arcing from the severed cables of the German fighter, the co-pilot slumped over the radar set and the pilot’s head lolling back, then it tumbled from the sky, spiralling down trailing a pillar of flame behind it.
One more threat remained, for the Me 109 had now extinguished its navigation lights. McLean tried to bring his guns to bear, but he could not get a bead on it and had to tell Evans, ‘This one’s all yours!’ Evans’s fire was accurate as the Me 109 made its approach, and McLean saw the muzzle flashes from the fighter’s guns suddenly cease. It disappeared beneath the Lancaster, but McLean tracked it and unleashed a few more bursts into it as it emerged on the starboard side. The fighter disappeared from sight and several minutes later, having scoured the sky on all sides, McLean gave his pilot the all clear. ‘That seems to be it, skipper. We’re all alone again!’ Only then, as the adrenalin from the fight began to fade, did McLean realise that he had been hit in the hand by one of the bullets from the first fighter attack.
As they made their way home, the wireless operator sent a signal to Group headquarters: ‘Attacked by fighters east of Paris. Three twin-engined fighters definitely destroyed. One single-engined fighter possibly damaged. Lancaster slight damage, nothing serious. ETA base follows later, God willing.’
It is safe to assume that the message was not believed at first. Air gunners might register an occasional ‘kill’ against enemy night-fighters, and once in a blue moon they might even manage two, but to shoot down three, let alone four, was simply inconceivable. However, they landed safely back at base and the debrief with the intelligence officer confirmed the truth of their claims.
After a brief spell in hospital, McLean returned to the squadron and flew on a total of fifty-one operations before being rested. He had nine kills to his credit, and his prowess was recognised by the award of a DFC to go with his DFM.
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The pace of 617’s activities was continuing to increase, and on 16 March 1944, the night following Tom McLean’s heroics on the abortive Woippy raid, the squadron was back in action as it ‘celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day’ by flying to Clermont-Ferrand to bomb the Michelin rubber factory. They were accompanied on the raid by six aircraft from 106 Squadron dropping parachute flares over the target to illuminate it for the target markers: Cheshire, Munro, McCarthy and Shannon. Despite heavy fire from the anti-aircraft defences – ‘there were so many shooting at us,’ Cheshire’s gunner, Wilfred Bickley, said, ‘we went around again and dropped the marker’ – all four of them put their red spot fires directly onto the target.
Reconnaissance photos later showed that all the Lancasters had scored direct hits. Ten 12,000-pound bombs and several sticks of incendiaries struck the factory site and every building apart from the canteen was destroyed or severely damaged. Cheshire ‘hung around for about twenty minutes afterwards. The smoke was up about eighteen thousand feet. You could even smell it [the burning rubber]. We could see it for miles going back.’23
According to the intelligence officers who briefed them before the raid, the Maquis – the French Resistance – had told the factory owner to sabotage his own assembly lines, but he had not done so, although he had burned some of his stock in an attempt to pacify them. As a result they had labelled him a ‘collaborator’ with the Nazis. In the wake of the raid, the intelligence officers reported that the Maquis were now finding factory owners ‘much more cooperative with them about sabotaging their factories’. They also claimed that the
Gestapo was offering a $1,000 reward for anyone turning in a member of 617 Squadron.24
Shortly after the raid on the Michelin factory, Nick Knilans’ crew were granted a nine-day leave. Knilans himself, fully justifying his reputation as a ladies’ man, spent his leave in York with a WAAF officer from the Intelligence Section, even though he had previously been ‘romancing a WAAF Corporal from her section. This officer had the Corporal posted off to another Station, unbeknownst to me. When I found out, I terminated our attachment. Besides, I had met a charming lass in the village …’
He completed his first tour at the end of March and then faced a dilemma. He could have opted for a long rest period in Training Command, but would then have been sent back to America, while his crew would have been scattered and liable for a recall for a second tour of fifteen ops. Since ‘Training Command would mean much more discipline and work’, and they all liked living at Woodhall Spa, had many local friends, and ‘the tripe had not been too dangerous’, Knilans told his crew that he would see them through their second tour too.25
Only time would tell if Knilans would be stretching his luck too far.
CHAPTER 5
Spring 1944
Lancaster ED825
The spring of 1944 heralded a black day for Bomber Command when, on the night of 30 March, 795 aircraft were dispatched to attack Nuremberg, the iconic site of Hitler’s pre-war rallies and the eponymous birthplace of his anti-Semitic laws. Nearly 100 aircraft and 700 men did not return from the raid. It would prove to be the RAF’s deadliest night of the war: more men from Bomber Command died on that single night than the total aircrew losses during the entirety of the Battle of Britain. The disastrous operation would mark an end to the major attacks on cities and a concentration on preparations for the long-awaited invasion.