After the Flood

by John Nichol

  617 Squadron’s own preparations for D-Day began a few days later. At eleven o’clock on the morning of 2 May 1944,1 the crews were summoned by tannoy to a briefing, and told to bring their identity cards with them, something which had never been required of them before. When they reached the briefing room they found the door guarded by Military Police (MPs), who scrutinised each ID card with microscopic attention before allowing them to pass. Inside, there was no sign of the WAAFs who normally produced the maps and intelligence data for the ops, nor the officers of the Intelligence Section. The telephone exchange had been shut down and the control tower cleared of all personnel. More MPs formed a cordon around the building.

  Meanwhile, Air Vice Marshal Cochrane was pacing along the perimeter track with 617’s commanding officer, Leonard Cheshire, and had only one question for him: could he vouch for the ability of every single member of the squadron to keep silent about an absolutely vital secret for a period of at least six weeks? After a few moments’ thought, Cheshire answered ‘Yes’ and the two men retraced their steps to the briefing room. To help ensure that Cheshire’s men justified his faith in them, agents of the Military Police’s Special Bureau of Investigation were ‘very active’ in the Lincolnshire area over the next few weeks, alert for any whisper that could be traced back to 617 Squadron, but not a hint of any leak was discovered.

  Cochrane’s opening statement was electrifying: ‘Gentlemen, the next time you are airborne it will be D-Day!’2 The aircrew leapt to their feet as one man, cheering and pounding the tables with their fists. It was several minutes before the hubbub had died down enough for Cochrane to resume his speech. He told them that the War Cabinet wanted aircraft using Gee navigation (the radio-based system that measured the time delay between two radio signals to produce an accurate positional ‘fix’) and Window to create the impression of an invasion convoy on the screens of German coastal radar stations. Cochrane told them:

  The problem was first referred to the Fleet Air Arm, as they have the slowest aircraft available but they have said that it is beyond their scope. Next it was offered to Coastal Command, since the operation will, of necessity, be in their special sphere of operations. Coastal have declined on the grounds that it is not possible to simulate an eight-knot invasion convoy with aircraft travelling at over 100 knots. The problem was then put to Bomber Command. Sir Arthur Harris took one look at it and said, ‘Send this to 617 to solve and let the rest of the Command get on with our business of fighting the war!’

  ‘So gentlemen,’ Cochrane said, after pausing to assess the impact of his words:

  I’m the bearer of this message. 617 Squadron is required to simulate an eight-knot naval convoy using your Lancasters cruising at 160 knots. There is no outside help available to you this time, absolutely none. You are on your own with this. There is not even a suggestion of how to solve it. On the face of it, it is impossible, but I share the Command Staff’s faith in the squadron that it will be solved, that 617 will rise to this challenge as they have risen to all others. Of one thing I am certain. If you, with all your operational experience and flair, cannot come up with a solution, then it is truly insoluble!

  No aircrew in this room is permitted to engage in operations until after D-Day, whenever that may be. I will not harp on the security angle too much, for the consequences of such a leak are too horrific to contemplate. All of you are responsible for each other. A failure by one single member will be counted as a failure by the whole squadron.

  The squadron’s navigators immediately put their heads together and began wrestling with the apparently impossible problem of reconciling the speed difference between the Lancasters and the snail-like pace of the surface ships. They eventually air-tested a number of options over the following days until they had arrived at what they felt was a workable solution: flying oval circuits above a small surface force as it advanced towards the French coastline while dropping Window to simulate a mass fleet approaching on the enemy’s radar screens. They then requested ‘boffin help’ to refine the system and determine the optimum height to fly and the quantities and frequency of Window drop. A distinguished physicist, Dr Robert Cockburn, the leader of the scientific team that had originally developed Window to defeat German radar, worked with the squadron’s navigators to refine and perfect the system.

  Cockburn had joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, in 1937 and worked on the ground-to-air VHF communications that were of vital importance for RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. In 1940 he was assigned to the Telecommunications Research Establishment near Swanage, where he headed a team working on radio counter-measures – ‘The Battle of the Beams’ – when successful jamming of the German bombers’ navigation systems reduced the damage they caused to London during the Blitz. Cockburn’s team also developed devices to jam enemy radar, reducing losses suffered by RAF bombers over Germany.

  Window, dropped by aircraft, created a radar echo similar to that of an actual bomber, confusing the air defences. It proved so effective in testing that some senior RAF officers opposed its introduction because of the potentially disastrous consequences if the Germans discovered the secret and turned the invention against its British creators. Bomber Command was finally permitted to use Window for the first time during Operation Gomorrah over Hamburg and it led to an immediate reduction in aircrew losses.

  After Cockburn and the 617 Squadron navigators had revised their system, it was tested against a captured German radar installation set up in the Firth of Forth, and on the Yorkshire coast near Flamborough Head, so that the radar picture could be observed while 617 Squadron flew their prescribed patterns offshore. It was not something most of the aircrew enjoyed doing. ‘It was frustrating just to be flying around the North Sea,’ John Bell says, ‘carrying out navigation exercises, turning this way and that, as we were observed on radar from Flamborough Head. I don’t think we even dropped Window until the last exercise. We just thought we should be dropping bombs on targets.’

  Those not taking part in the day’s drills often flew up to Driffield and then went by road to the radar station at Bempton to see the deception unfold on screen. A few of the more adventurous members of the squadron also spent some of their spare time climbing down the sea cliffs at Flamborough to look for seagulls’ eggs which were then ‘brought back for tea’.

  John Bell may have been bored with the invasion rehearsals, but life, and death, continued apace for the vast majority of the men of Bomber Command.

  * * *

  Cochrane’s prohibition of 617 aircrew taking part in operations until after D-Day was lifted at once when agents in France reported that the German 21st Panzer Division of some 15,000 men had moved into the barracks at Mailly-le-Camp, the biggest army camp in north-west France. The absolute necessity of destroying the Panzer division to prevent it intervening against the forthcoming D-Day invasion led to permission being given, albeit with considerable reluctance, for the four 617 Mosquitos, led by Cheshire himself, to mark the target for 346 Main Force bombers. However, the division of responsibilities between Cheshire, acting as lead target marker, and Wing Commander Laurence Deane of 83 Squadron, who was the overall controller, was a recipe for potential confusion, if not disaster.

  Rusty Waughman

  The CO of 166 Squadron had assured his men that the op would be ‘a piece of cake, chaps, just like falling off a log. Tonight there will be no night-fighters, very little ack-ack, just go in and wipe it off the map and come home.’3 Flight Lieutenant Russell ‘Rusty’ Waughman, a pilot with 101 Squadron, also recalled thinking at his briefing that ‘this was going to be one of the easier operations’, but the crews were all to be rapidly disabused of that idea.4 One crewman from 166 Squadron stopped for a word with one of his mates from a different crew as they were leaving the briefing. His friend told him that ‘He’d had a rotten leave, he had fallen out with his girlfriend,’ and didn’t like the operation as it was out of Gee range, and ‘without it his navigator was use
less. His final words were, “This operation, we’ve had it.” We had a good laugh and parted. He was lost with the rest of the crew that night.’5

  The yellow TIs – target indicators – at the assembly point were laid late, and the Main Force bombers were then held there. ‘We did not like this at all,’ one crewman recalled:

  and the crew were worried as visibility was clear and we knew from experience the dangers of hanging around enemy territory any longer than absolutely necessary. We were circling this flare for approximately half an hour and becoming increasingly worried as it appeared impossible to receive any radio instructions due to an American Forces Broadcasting Station blasting away. I remember only too well the tune, ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’, followed by hand-clapping and a noise like a party going on. Other garbled talk was in the background but drowned by the music.6

  That made it ‘very difficult, if not impossible, for the Main Force to hear any instructions from the M/C [Master of Ceremonies],’ recalls Rusty Waughman.

  Having marked the target, Cheshire tried to call the Main Force bombers in to attack, but Deane did not respond and the interference meant that Cheshire went unheard by the Main Force crews. Since they received no orders to begin their bomb-runs from Deane either, they were forced to keep circling to the north of the target, the bright moonlight making them sitting ducks for the flak batteries and the prowling night-fighters. One crewman, whose job was to stand in the astrodome to report sightings of aircraft being hit and record the positions according to a clock dial, suddenly saw ‘a burst of green tracer fire flash across the sky, then another, and so it went on and there were aircraft going down in all directions.’ He counted seventeen bombers shot down before the navigator told him to stop.7

  ‘Things hotted up quickly,’ Waughman said.

  There was a lot of German fighter activity and Main Force aircraft were seen being shot down. The R/T discipline, I’m afraid to say, was bad. There were many skippers calling for the okay to go in and bomb; their language was fruity to say the least, the night sky was blue! One pilot was heard to say that he was on fire and for the markers to ‘pull their fingers out’. An Australian voice came in reply: ‘If you are going to die, die like a man: quietly.’

  Some Main Force crews took it on themselves to begin their bomb-runs, but the rest had to wait until 00.24, when they finally heard the order ‘Panthers, go in and bomb!’ By then the flak and night-fighters had already taken a very heavy toll of the bombers. ‘All too often we would see flames above and soon afterwards a heavy bomber would fall to the ground,’ one pilot recalled.8 And by the time one crew began their run at 00.30, they could already see ‘several planes burning on the ground’.9 Another crewman watched in horror as ‘two of our companion planes burst into flames. We managed to pick out a tiny figure escaping from his inferno, looking like a little toy parachutist suspended in midair.’10

  Rusty Waughman’s crew saw another aircraft blow up immediately below them. The bomb-aimer, who was lying down in the nose, saw the explosion and the blast and flames flaring rapidly towards him but had no time to say anything before the blast wave hit them. ‘We were blown nearly completely upside down,’ Rusty said.

  I recall having to pull back very hard on the control column, as if coming out of a very badly executed loop the loop. The airspeed indicator read nearly 400 miles an hour [the Lancaster’s maximum speed was supposed to be 282 miles an hour]. This happened at about 7,000 feet; we eventually pulled out at just under 1,500 feet, heading down very fast, with the aircraft creaking under the exertions. This happened just after we dropped our bombs; I doubt if we would have recovered if we’d still had our load on board.

  Despite the carnage among them, Main Force bombed the target very accurately and ‘brilliant yellow fires were seen all around the A/P [aiming point] and the smoke billowed up to a great height. Shockwaves were seen, caused by the bursting bombs, radiating like ripples caused by a stone dropped in a pond.’11

  In strictly operational terms, the raid on Mailly-le-Camp proved a great success. Eighty per cent of the tank depot had been destroyed, with heavy losses of tanks and other vehicles, and heavy casualties among the tank crews and other trained personnel. But Main Force had paid a savage price for the operation, with forty-two bombers shot down – one in eight of those which had taken part. Understandably furious at their losses, many Main Force personnel blamed Cheshire for the disaster, though this was completely unwarranted. Apart from the interference from the American radio station, Deane’s radio was later found not to be tuned to the designated frequency, causing his signals to be weak and difficult to receive.12

  ‘It was a night that I shall never forget,’ one Main Force survivor recalled, ‘and I think that a lot of boys were turned into men on the raid.’ At the debriefing for 166 Squadron the CO demanded to know what had gone wrong. ‘A Flight Sergeant who was on his third tour of operations – in the region of ninety operations including trips to Berlin – turned round on the Commanding Officer and told him to “(expletive deleted) off. And don’t you talk to me about falling off a log. Give me Berlin any time.” The Commanding Officer quickly disappeared.’13

  The raid had one other consequence. Until Mailly-le-Camp, raids on French targets were regarded as so routine that they were counted as only one-third of an operation – had a crew flown only on ops over France, they would have required ninety ops to complete a tour, rather than the usual thirty. After Mailly-le-Camp, each raid over France counted as one op.

  A senior intelligence officer, fearing that if shot down, one of the 617 Squadron crewmen might reveal the secrets of their D-Day deception under Gestapo torture, had had some kind words for them as they had prepared for the Mailly-le-Camp op: ‘Gentlemen, if any of you go missing, it will be a relief to us to hear that you are dead.’14 However, to his – and their – huge relief, and despite the huge Main Force losses, all four crews of 617 Squadron returned safely to base.

  * * *

  For the rest of 617 Squadron, the tedium of the endless rehearsals for Operation Taxable – as their contribution to the D-Day landings was known – and no ‘live’ ops to relieve the monotony, was only partially relieved by low-level ‘beat-ups’ of the Norfolk coast as they returned to base. The coastal fishermen, bait diggers and potato pickers startled out of their wits by 617’s Lancasters blasting in at wave-top height may not have been fully appreciative of the pilots’ need to let off steam!

  On 16 May there was a genuine reason for high spirits as the squadron celebrated the anniversary of the Dams raid. Many veterans of the raid joined a celebration party at Petwood Hall. It began with a ‘somewhat formal gathering’ on the communal site in front of the NAAFI, with officers and airmen together, and became considerably less formal as the day wore on. It’s likely that sore heads meant the practice for Operation Taxable the next morning was not performed with quite the customary precision, though the worst hangovers came twenty-four hours later.

  The Station Commander at Woodhall Spa had decided that since many VIPs and their wives were attending the party and ‘due decorum should be maintained’, a marquee should be erected on the lawn at the rear of the Petwood and several barrels of beer installed there so that the junior officers could ‘drink to their hearts’ content’ without any risk of embarrassment to the VIPs. In the event, it poured with rain for the whole of the afternoon and evening, and nobody went outside at all. The next morning, to the junior officers’ delight, they discovered six untouched twelve-gallon barrels of beer still sitting in the marquee. ‘As we were not on ops for the next two nights,’ one of them recalled with a smile, ‘you can imagine the result!’15

  Guy Gibson, the celebrated leader of the Dams raid, who had now returned from his lengthy flag-waving tour of the United States, appeared on Desert Island Discs and completed a spell at Staff College, had been unable to attend the party, or the impromptu junior officers’ booze-up in the marquee that followed it. But he did attend the all-ranks Squadron
Dance held later that week, on 19 May. There was a large trestle table at the front holding a huge cake, with icing-sugar replicas of the infamous dams decorating the top. Cheshire said a few words first and then Gibson climbed up on to the table next to the cake to give his speech. As he tried to get down afterwards, he slipped and sat down squarely on the cake. ‘His backside was covered in icing and there was a huge amount of cheering and hooting!’ John Bell says, smiling at the memory.

  Don Cheney recalls another party at 106 Squadron when Guy Gibson came back for a birthday party thrown in his honour. ‘I remember him serving at the bar wearing a corporal’s dress jacket while the corporal steward wore Gibson’s dress jacket, resplendent with all his medals, including the VC! He seemed a very pleasant guy and joined in all the fun … I seem to remember at one point that someone brought a horse into the party!’16

  Still carrying out endless practices with no idea how long they would have to continue, 617’s crews chafed at the lack of action and welcomed any chance to alleviate the boredom. Shortly before D-Day, an opportunity presented itself when, fearing that German paratroopers might attack airfields to disrupt air support for the D-Day invasion, Leonard Cheshire issued his men with arms – pistols and Sten guns – for the defence of themselves and their base. Three days later, the arms were hurriedly recalled ‘after much ribald target-shooting’ had smashed scores of the hotel’s china plates and there had also been a few near-misses by shots fired from the upper windows of the Petwood.17 617’s aircrew may have been able to drop a bomb into a barrel from 18,000 feet but, issued with small arms, few of them seemed capable of hitting a barn door from twenty paces!