by John Nichol
Cheney continued the turn away from the target and out towards the sea, but the starboard wing was riddled with flak holes – ‘the biggest hole, a man could have climbed right through,’ he says – and flames and dense black smoke were billowing from it. As he applied the left rudder, causing the aircraft to side-slip and blow the fire away from the fuselage, the starboard outer engine failed and flames belched from under its cowling. Jim Rosher feathered the propeller and activated the fire extinguisher, but the blaze in the number-two fuel tank could not be extinguished, and even if the tank did not explode, the flames were still burning along the wing and would soon engulf the fuselage.
‘I knew almost immediately the aircraft was doomed,’ Cheney says. ‘It was all over and we were going down. The most important thing to do now was to get everyone out. There was no panic, everyone knew what they had to do.’ He gave the order to abandon the aircraft and ‘can still hear the voice of rear gunner Noel Wait calling over the intercom: “Wait for me! Wait for me!”’ Cheney reassured him, but was still ‘staring in horror at the flaming wing and gritting my teeth in expectation of the explosion of the fuel tanks. I had seen several crew survive such an event, but the prospect was terrible to contemplate.’
Cheney held the aircraft as steady as he could while the rest of the crew baled out. ‘I felt huge responsibility to my crew and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving anyone behind. They were my very good friends, men I’d flown with, fought alongside, socialised with, lived with – my family – and it was a shocking sight, to see some of them with terrible wounds.’
Jim Rosher passed Cheney his parachute and then helped Len Curtis with the forward escape hatch, which had jammed, partially blocking it – it was only 22 inches wide when fully open. They managed to force it open wide enough to squeeze through. Blood was running down the navigator’s face as he stood in the aisle by Cheney’s seat, waiting for his moment to go down through the escape hatch. ‘He looked at me and smiled,’ Cheney says. ‘I smiled back and then he was gone. I still see that smile today. I was so proud of my crew.’ Curtis and Rosher had waited to help the wounded navigator through before escaping themselves, while the two gunners escaped through the rear hatch.
Cheney and the badly wounded wireless operator Reg Pool were now alone in the aircraft. Cheney held the control column with one hand while reaching back to help Pool to his feet. The wireless operator shook his head at first but then gradually crept forward. He slumped against the side of Cheney’s seat as the plane began to wallow from side to side and the nose dipped, increasing the speed. Cheney had to wrestle the aircraft back under control, then rose from his seat to clip on Pool’s parachute. Each time he let go of the control column, the aircraft began to go into a dive and he had to switch rapidly between the controls and his injured crewman. He pointed to the ripcord and asked Pool if he could pull it and received a weak answering nod. Pool wriggled down into the hatch and signalled to Cheney to save himself. ‘I saluted him,’ recalls Don, ‘then turned my attention to my own fate.’
The heat in the cockpit was now intense: ‘I could see yellowish-brown bubbles and blisters breaking out on the flight engineer’s panel. The heat was increasing and I was certain that the aircraft would blow up at any moment.’ He grabbed the controls as the aircraft again began to dive, and wrestled it back into level flight. However, he knew there was no possibility of stabilising it long enough for him to clip on his parachute, make his way to the hatch in the nose and squeeze through before the aircraft went into a death dive so steep that he would be unable to escape at all. His only hope was to use the dinghy escape hatch in the roof above and behind him. He buckled his bulky parachute pack on to his chest, knelt on his seat and wrenched the handles of the hatch cover open.
As it flew off into the slipstream, the already deafening roar of the wind blasting through the shattered aircraft, and the thunder of the remaining engines, grew even louder. He tore off his sunglasses and flying helmet and got first one foot and then the other on to the seat, so he was standing in a crouch, with his knees bent. Putting one foot at a time on the armrests of the seat and straightening up, he was able to get his head and shoulders into the hatch, but the parachute pack was too bulky for him to get through while wearing it. He crouched down again, pulled the control column towards him with his foot to bring the aircraft back out of the dive into which it was slipping, then worked the chute pack out of the hatch first and got his head and shoulders through. Hauling with his arms and pushing with his feet, he managed to wriggle up until he had one knee on the outside edge of the hatch.
The aircraft was again slipping into a dive, and with the control column now out of reach, he had only seconds to escape. He groped with his foot for the back of the pilot’s seat, braced himself against it and then pushed with all his might.
As he shot out of the hatch, the slipstream caught him and hurled him towards the tail of the aircraft. Fortunately the mid-upper gunner had depressed his guns before abandoning his post, or Cheney would have been impaled on them. He missed them and the sharp-edged tail fins as he tumbled in the slipstream, his only injury a cut to his cheek as he skimmed the aerial wires from the fins. The smoke, flames and the deafening noise faded. All that was left was the whoosh of the slipstream and the sensation of tumbling as he fell through the air.
‘I remember seeing blue sky and white clouds, then green and brown farmland, then the sky again above my flying boots. I counted to three, grasped the ripcord and pulled with all my might!’ There was a sickening pause, and when Cheney looked at the ring and two feet of wire in his hand, ‘I thought, Good Lord! I’ve pulled too hard and broken the chute!’ Mercifully, the canopy snapped open, he was jerked upright and found himself drifting down in the sunshine in complete silence.
‘I was alone in the sky,’ Cheney says, recalling his incredible escape from the comfort of his home in Canada, ‘and wondered if I was dreaming; could this all really be true?’ The burning Lancaster was still visible half a mile away, trailing smoke and flames. It had somehow come out of its dive and was climbing at a very steep angle, but as he watched, the nose suddenly dropped again and with its remaining engines still thundering, it spun down in a near-vertical spin and smashed into the sea. Flames, smoke, steam and spray were hurled high into the air and debris was spattered over a wide area, but as the sea subsided again there was only silence. The aircraft had disappeared, leaving nothing but a drift of black smoke that rapidly dispersed on the breeze.
There was no sign of any other parachutes, but it had taken Cheney so long to escape from the aircraft that his crewmates must already have splashed down in the sea. Raising his gaze, he saw the rest of the squadron’s aircraft heading home. ‘My comrades, disappearing over the horizon, would soon be safe back on friendly soil, but here I was heading towards enemy territory. I wondered if they’d raise a beer to us later that night.’ One of his friends later told him that he’d watched through his binoculars from the astrodome of his own Lancaster, unable to tear his gaze away, as Cheney’s aircraft was shot down. He had counted six parachutes leaving the aircraft, but had not seen a seventh, and with a heavy heart had resigned himself to the thought that Cheney had been unable to escape before his aircraft had crashed in flames.
Cheney splashed down into the sea and released his parachute at once, fearing it might otherwise drag him under. His Mae West inflated, and as he floated in the water he looked around, taking his bearings. He was about 18 miles south of Brest, just off the beaches of what, in peacetime, had been a popular French resort. He was a good swimmer, but hampered by his Mae West he could make only slow progress towards the shore. As he did so bullets began to strike the waves around him as German soldiers on the beach took potshots at him. He changed direction and began swimming back out to sea.
There was bright sunshine but a stiff breeze, and he had been in the water for about an hour and a half when he saw an old wooden fishing boat chugging through the waves towards him. ‘Looking at
this fishing boat approaching, I presumed I was about to be captured and that my war was over,’ he says. ‘It really was a contrast: the water was beautifully warm and serene, the French coast looked sun-drenched and beautiful, but I was about to fall into enemy hands. I was lucky to have got that far, but now it was all over.’
A few moments later strong arms were pulling him into the boat. None of the six-man crew was wearing German uniform, and when, in his best high school French, he asked, ‘Où sont les Boches?’ one of them replied, ‘Ah ha, les Boches kaput!’, dragging his finger across his throat for added emphasis.
That triumphant note was a little premature, because although American troops were advancing on the area, the German garrison remained in control of the fishing port where Cheney was being taken. Soon after the boat reached the jetty, he was hurried into a battered old truck and, flanked by heavily armed Resistance fighters, driven to a house a mile or so away and hustled up a flight of stairs. He was handed over to a Frenchwoman, who gave him some of her husband’s clothes, fed him a sandwich and some fruit and then left him to sleep in a top-floor room.
Five hours later, as night was falling, she returned with her husband, Aristide Québriac, the Administrator-in-Chief of the Port Authority, who was also one of the leaders of the Resistance in the area. They took Cheney into the back yard and showed him a hiding place they had made behind a ceiling-high stack of firewood in a shed at the far side of the yard, accessed by a concealed door – a loose plank, which could be locked in place once he was inside. It would be his hiding place during any German searches.
He was desperate to discover the fate of his crewmates, but when the Resistance brought the first word of one of them, two days later, the news was bleak. A member of the Resistance had discovered a drowned body, dragged it from the water and hidden it from the Germans. Later that night one of the Resistance leaders woke Cheney and took him to identify the body. It was his wireless operator, Reg Pool. ‘He’d been in the water two days,’ Cheney says, ‘and it was a really upsetting sight to see my friend this way. The Germans had refused permission for any burial but later the Resistance held a short service – a secret ceremony – for Reg which I attended. It was very sad but I was so pleased to be able to say goodbye properly and see him off with dignity.’ The Resistance then buried the body in the local churchyard.
The body of the navigator, Roy Welch, came ashore some time afterwards, but both he and Pool had been badly wounded, and it was a third death that Cheney found hardest to bear. Rear gunner Noel Wait had been uninjured when he baled out of the doomed aircraft, but he was a non-swimmer and known to be terrified about baling out over the sea. His drowned body was found, still entangled in the shrouds of his parachute, and it is probable that his panic as he entered the water had cost him his life.
* * *
Back in England, 617 Squadron had lost another two members on 7 August, but this time they were killed in a training accident, which made the loss seem even more pointless and tragic. A Canadian pilot, Flying Officer Bill Duffy, and Phil Ingelby, Nick Knilans’ best friend on the squadron, were practising target marking by dive-bombing targets on the Wainfleet bombing range in the Wash, and when Duffy pulled up from low level, one wing folded back and the Mosquito crashed into the water, killing both men instantly. Don Bell normally flew with Duffy, but the repeated dive-bombing practice made his stomach churn so much that he opted to stay behind on this occasion, saying that he intended to eat lunch for once instead, and Ingelby had taken his place, with fatal results.3
The raid on Brest on 5 August 1944 was also John Bell’s last op with the squadron. He had completed fifty ops before standing down and was ‘aware that the odds were getting a bit shorter of making it through,’ he says. ‘The flak over the targets was heavy and we’d lost a few crews, which concentrated the mind. Florence knew the risks too, and she would remind me from time to time that we needed to think about our future together and not to push my luck, to think of my responsibilities, of life after ops.’
* * *
As Don Cheney remained in hiding in northern France, 617 Squadron carried out another series of raids against the U-boat pens at Brest and the derelict French cruiser Gueydon, which the Germans were trying to move to act as a blockship to prevent Allied shipping from gaining access to the harbour. There had been little flak on the first raid, but as they approached the target area on 14 August, now looking more than a little scarred by the previous bombing, ‘all hell let loose,’ John Pryor recalls. ‘They were ready for us this time. Heavy flak everywhere.’4 As one of Willie Tait’s crewmen also observed, Brest was definitely ‘not a pleasant target’ on this occasion. ‘The daylight sky would be full of those large fourteen- and sixteen-inch naval shells that gave out a horrible orange cloud and a devil of a lot of shrapnel too. Also, Willie had an annoying habit of having a last look round that was not all that popular with the crew. However, we came through okay, although every machine in the squadron was hit in some way or another.’5
As John Pryor began his bombing run, his aircraft was hit by a heavy barrage of flak, knocking out the compass. The bomb-aimer, Pes Pesme, had identified the target, but there was then no further word from him. After trying and failing to raise him on the intercom, Pryor asked one of the other crewmen to go down and check on him. Pesme was still at his position but was stone dead, hit in the throat by a piece of shrapnel which had exited through the top of his scalp, killing him instantly. The bombsight had been running from the moment he was hit and, even though he was already dead, the bomb had still released automatically. There was nothing his crewmates could now do but turn for home. The homeward journey was, Pryor says, ‘the longest, saddest and quietest (as far as talking was concerned) we ever had to make. I could not believe Pes was killed. It just would not register.’
All of them were still ‘a bit shocked and stunned’ when they landed back at base at 12.40. They were directed away from the normal dispersal to an open area where an ambulance could collect the body, while the ground staff began the gruesome task of cleaning out the bomb-aimer’s compartment. Pryor and one of his crewmates wanted to go to Pesme’s funeral to say a proper farewell to their comrade, but to their distress, they were told that it was against Group policy for crewmates of a dead airman to attend his funeral, and other members of the squadron had to stand in for them.6
* * *
Nick Knilans and his crew had been granted another week’s leave in mid-August, and while his men went back to their homes or to stay with their English girlfriends, he ‘went off to the fun and games of old London town for a farewell visit. The bartenders, owners and bar girls of the Chez Cup and the Chez Moi seemed to be glad that I was still alive.’
While he was on leave, Operation Dragoon, beginning on 15 August 1944, saw the first Allied landings in southern France. German counter-attacks were repulsed and by the night of 17 August, hotly pursued by the Allies and hindered at every step by the Maquis, the Germans were in full-scale retreat. On 19 August, heartened by the rout of the German forces, the French Resistance rose up in rebellion in Paris, and within a week the city had been liberated, with its German military rulers refusing to carry out Hitler’s order to burn Paris in reprisal.
Nick Knilans returned from his leave to discover that, in his absence, 617 Squadron had been repeatedly bombing the U-boat pens at Brest and La Pallice. They had bombed every morning, and each time approached from the same direction off the sea. The flak gunners were therefore ready and waiting for the raiders when they appeared, and there was also a widespread and possibly well-founded belief among aircrew that German flak gunners gave the lead aircraft in a formation particular attention, believing that it would contain the highest-ranking officer. One pilot of relatively low rank but with a high number of combat ops had complained to Willie Tait about having to lead the formation every day, and Nick Knilans had volunteered to lead the squadron into combat in his place. However, ‘higher authorities could not tolerate a Yank
leading a Royal Air Force squadron into action’, and his offer was refused.
After his return, Knilans, in company with his twenty-year-old flight engineer, Ken Ryall, who’d been made the squadron’s Flight Engineer Leader, began a series of precautionary landings, heavyweight take-offs and fuel-consumption tests, assessing what combination of pitch and throttle settings would consume the least fuel. They were accompanied by a civilian engineer from the Lancaster’s manufacturers who gave them ‘helpful hints on engine care and fuel consumption’. The reason for these tests was not revealed at the time, but it was clear to everyone on the squadron that they were preparing for an attack on an as yet unknown but far-distant target.
As Knilans’ Lancaster ‘droned at one thousand feet up and down the nearby coast’, carrying out the repetitive tests, to his alarm he discovered that he was having trouble flying the aircraft, though not because of any mechanical problems. ‘The low, broken clouds were casting fast-moving shadows on the ground. As I flew in and out of the clouds, I was becoming disoriented. I began to fly erratically.’ He had already completed two full tours of combat operations and was well into his third, and he guessed that his subconscious was beginning to rebel against the continued strain on his nerves. As a result, fearing that he was endangering not only himself but his crew members as well, he had made the decision that the op for which they were training would be his last bombing trip for the Royal Air Force.
The next day he was given cause to regret not having stopped there and then, when he found himself tasked with doing an ‘all-up weight test’ which involved trying to take off from Woodhall Spa’s relatively short runways under a total load of 70,000 pounds in fuel, bombs and the aircraft’s own weight – 5,000 pounds more than the Lancaster’s designed maximum limit. Accelerating even as he swung onto the runway, he roared along it, but the aircraft remained stubbornly earthbound, even as the end of the runway approached. He hauled it off the ground, but it sank back down, and he had to ‘bounce’ it off the ground again, by which time he was already 100 yards beyond the end of the runway. The control column felt ‘flabby’ in his hands and, only just above stalling speed and on a collision course with a line of telegraph poles and wires, he made the mistake of asking his flight engineer if he should try to fly over or under the wires.