Joey Jacobson's War

by Peter J. Usher

  9 Although Jack had been posted to No. 25 OTU on the same day as Joe, like most of their classmates, he managed to get through his required flying time with fewer interruptions and delays. He was given a week’s leave and directed to report to 106 Squadron on the 18th.

  10 Sgt. James Cooper had graduated from the air observer course preceding Joe’s and had arrived in Britain a month before him. He was killed in a flying accident on 3 June at No. 11 OTU near Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire.

  11 Sgt. Charles Davis was Joe’s classmate throughout Air Observer School. He was killed in a flying accident on 19 June at No. 16 OTU (Upper Heyford). Sgt. Ed Grange was badly injured in a separate flying accident the same day at Upper Heyford. He was in the air observer course after Joe’s, but they had shipped out to England at the same time. Grange would be killed in action in 1943.

  12 P/O Robert George Mitchell had been Joe’s classmate all the way through training in Canada (as had Milward). Arriving in England a few days before Joe, he had been assigned to No. 16 OTU. His Hampden aircraft vanished without a trace during a night raid on Hamburg on 17 July, three weeks after beginning operations at 50 Squadron.

  13 Joe had received incorrect information (as sometimes happened in connection with casualties). His classmate “Pop” Miller (so nicknamed because he was then thirty-one years old) turned up alive and well at Joe’s next station in August. He would be killed in action while navigating a Hampden in 402 Squadron on 12 February 1942, on the notoriously failed Operation Fuller, against German battleships running the English Channel under cover of foul weather.

  14 If Joe kept a diary of his training flights, it has not survived. He did, however, keep a diary of his operational flights when he began combat in August.

  Chapter 14: A Canadian’s Estimate of England

  1 “Censorette” was a patronizing nickname applied to letter examiners, generally middle-aged women with decent educations occupying the lowest level in the Censorship Department’s hierarchy. The letter was sent by air, although the envelope itself is not in the Jacobson collection and presumably was not retained.

  2 Postal and Telegraph Censorship Submission PO/57935/41, 7 August 1941. DHH 181.009 (D283), Censored Letters, vol. 2.

  3 Air Commodore L. F. Stevenson to the Secretary, Department of National Defence for Air, 14 August 1941. DHH, 181.009 (D283), Censored Letters, vol. 2. Identification of both sender and recipient was omitted in this three legal-length-page rendering.

  4 The Lion and the Unicorn was at the time Orwell’s most widely circulated book. In it he characterized the English as deeply patriotic but also insular and quite uninterested in things foreign; as obstinate and “clinging to everything that is out of date and a nuisance … but they have a certain power of acting without taking thought.” He likened the English to “a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts … a family with the wrong members in control.” He accused the ruling class of stupidity, incompetence, lack of imagination, and an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing,” yet at the same time “morally fairly sound … in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed.”

  Chapter 16: Preparing for Battle

  1 By mid-1942 the process would take sixteen months.

  2 Sgt. Stanley John Tyson, of London, Ontario, and P/O John Keith Dingle Williams, of Saskatoon, had trained with Joe from the beginning through graduation. Tyson was among those who had been confined to barracks with Joe in Regina; Williams graduated at the top of the class. They arrived in Britain a few days earlier than Joe, and were posted to No. 3 OTU (Coastal Command) in Chivenor to train on Beauforts. Tyson’s aircraft went missing without a trace on a navigational exercise over the Atlantic on 31 May. Williams had been reassigned to a torpedo training unit in Scotland, where he was killed in a flying training accident on 30 June. Tyson is commemorated at Runnymede (the RAF Memorial for those who died in its service in the Second World War with no known grave); Williams is buried at Hawkhead cemetery, Paisley, Scotland. Sgt. E. R. Kennedy, and Sgt. J. F. MacMillan, who had attended ITS in Toronto with Joe the previous summer, were killed in the same flying accident at No. 21 OTU in the west of England, on 24 July. Both are buried at Long Lawford churchyard, Warwickshire.

  3 Adjutor Savard later wrote Les ailes Canadiennes Françaises, a tribute to individual French Canadians serving the RCAF, published in 1944. Ernest Savard was a Montreal stockbroker, and head of a syndicate that managed the Montreal Canadiens. Jean-Charles Harvey was a journalist, author, and member of the Canadian Authors Association, known for his anti-fascist and pro-allied views, and his criticism of Quebec conservatism, clericalism, and anti-Semitism. B. K. Sandwell was then editor of Saturday Night magazine, and prominent in English Canadian intellectual and publishing circles. Both Harvey and Sandwell were associates of Percy. The Canadian journalists were on a tour lasting several weeks to report on Britain’s wartime spirit.

  4 Daily Express, 24 July 1941; New Statesman and Nation, 2 August 1941.

  Part Three: Night Bombing

  Chapter 17: Bomber Command

  1 TNA, AIR 14/682, 23 September 1940 minute.

  2 The Air Ministry drew a direct link between its gallant flyers and the heroic age of exploration in its publicity booklet, Bomber Command: The Air Ministry Account of Bomber Command’s Offensive Against the Axis, September 1939—July 1941 (London: Air Ministry, 1941).

  3 4 June 1940 Directive, Air Ministry to Bomber Command, in C. Webster and N. Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939–1945 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1961), 4:113.

  4 30 October 1940 Directive, Air Ministry to Bomber Command, in ibid., 4:129. The term “moral” was commonly used in relation to the desired effect of the strategic air offensive at that time. I have preferred to use the term “morale.”

  5 9 March 1941 Directive, Air Ministry to Bomber Command, in ibid., 4:133.

  6 TNA, AIR 14/1960, Minutes of Conference, 2 June 1941.

  Chapter 18: Initiation

  1 Aak aak, also referred to as flak, was a common shorthand for anti-aircraft fire.

  2 W/C J. G. Roberts DFC, DFM, audio interview, December 2003, reference 26580, Imperial War Museum, London; Twenty Years in the Air [typescript], 1989, reference 024027, Royal Air Force Museum, London.

  3 Both aircraft were indeed shot down by night-fighters. Len Acres, a fellow observer, was killed and is buried at Gembloux, Belgium. Johnny Cook survived, but was taken prisoner of war.

  Chapter 19: Confidence Affirmed

  1 P/O James Paul Erly, DFC, of Toronto, had arrived in England in February. He, along with his classmate Rae Dunn, were posted to 106 Squadron at the beginning of May, the first Canadian flyers to serve there. His aircraft was downed by flak during an operation on Mannheim on 23 August.

  2 These “special informed sources” were probably the Intelligence Narratives of Operations and Intelligence Summaries compiled at Bomber Command Headquarters and circulated to groups several times each month. These Command-wide summaries of operational debriefings were secret documents, not intended as propaganda, yet they suffered from the same defects.

  Chapter 21: Confidence Tested

  1 TNA, AIR 24/234, Bomber Command Navigation Bulletin – August 1941.

  2 TNA, AIR 14/1218, J. M. Butt to W/C Duggan, 18 August 1941. The report was commissioned by Churchill’s science adviser in July to determine the accuracy of bombing, and assigned to Mr. Butt, an economist in the civil service.

  3 TNA, AIR 12/1218, Investigation of Inaccurate Navigation during Operational Flights, BCHQ to Groups, 13 September 1941.

  4 TNA, AIR 27/832, 106 Squadron Operations Book Record, 6–7 September 1941.

  5 Fred Matkin had been with Joe on the Laconia and in operational training at Finningley.

  6 Rae Dunn, one of the first Canadian observers to serve in 106 Squadron, was nearing the end of his first operational tour, this being his twenty-e
ighth sortie. His aircraft went down in Denmark after losing an engine. All were subsequently captured and taken prisoner of war.

  Chapter 22: A Brotherhood Lost

  1 Murray MacLaren Keswick, of Hartland, NB, was one of Joe’s closest friends throughout training, a bond augmented by being confined to barracks for the same escapade the previous September in Regina. They left Debert at same time, but Keswick got to Britain first, and was posted to No. 21 OTU and then to 149 Squadron a month before Joe completed his operational training. Keswick was observer on a Wellington when he was killed on the Berlin raid on the night of 7–8 September, at the age of twenty-two. He is buried in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany.

  2 Jack McIntyre, age twenty, had been posted to 106 Squadron from Finningley two weeks before Joe. His aircraft was shot down by a night-fighter. His body was never recovered and he is commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial. The other three men survived, but were taken into captivity. The Squadron’s aircraft were unable to penetrate Hamburg’s air defences that night despite clear weather.

  3 “Lord Haw-Haw” was William Joyce, an Irish-American Nazi sympathizer who went to Germany to narrate regular propaganda broadcasts to Britain during the war. He was tried and hanged for treason in 1946.

  4 John Donaghue, from New York State, was an air gunner in 97 Squadron. He would be killed in action in 1942.

  5 The item, “A Jew in Hitler’s Patch,” which appeared on 15 July 1941, offered no support for its claim.

  Chapter 23: Action and Inaction

  1 Everett Littlefield, from Massachusetts, was then serving as an air gunner in 12 Squadron.

  2 Lionel Shapiro was a war correspondent for the Montreal Gazette and Maclean’s.

  3 Mrs. Jacobs, a relative of Percy’s, had invited Joe for the traditional breaking of the fast after Yom Kippur.

  4 Joe is referring only to his close friends. In fact, the squadron participated in two raids during that week. One aircraft failed to return after being recalled due to fog. In the outcome it had overflown England entirely and the crew (including a wireless operator/air gunner who had crewed with Joe on two previous occasions) bailed out over Ireland, where they were interned for the remainder of the war.

  5 TNA, AIR 24/235, Bomber Command Navigation Bulletin—September 1941.

  6 This achievement was singled out among his consistently accurate bombing record in his DFC citation two weeks later.

  7 The crew was not in fact credited for this sortie. The critical point of no return to count as an operational trip toward tour completion was latitude 4 degrees east (at the Dutch coast); if the trip was aborted for any reason before reaching this point, it did not count. This was Joe’s second aborted sortie, so he had thirteen to his credit.

  8 The real number was about ten, although it would reach twenty before long.

  9 Joe is referring to F/Sgt. H. I. Popay, DFM.

  10 One of which crashed near Hamburg with F/Sgt. Douglas John Carmichael, of Noranda, Quebec. He is buried at the Becklingen War Cemetery in Soltau, Germany.

  Chapter 24: Questions and Doubts

  1 The code name for the main electric power plant in Cologne.

  Chapter 25: Winding Down

  1 5 Group was not involved as its commander, Air Vice-Marshal John Slessor, with commendable foresight, objected on account of forecast conditions, and he was authorized to send his aircraft to Cologne instead. The loss of thirty-seven bomber crews on this single night was the highest of the war to that point.

  2 Roger Rousseau had been dispatched with a small force to mine Oslo Fiord in Norway the same night, from an advance base in Scotland. It was a tough assignment; unlike the Baltic coast, the Fiord was steep-sided and the German guns could fire on low-flying aircraft from above as well as below. Joe had also been detailed for the Norway operation, but was reassigned. 106 Squadron lost three aircraft in Norway that night, including that of F/O Bruce Gordon McIver, DFC, of Hamilton. He had enlisted around the same time as Joe, but took his air observer and operational training at other units, and was posted to 106 Squadron two months before Joe arrived. His DFC citation (awarded six weeks before he was killed) refers to his courage, persistence, skill, and bombing accuracy. His aircraft was last heard from on its return from Norway, off the coast of Scotland, but never seen again. McIver was twenty-five years old, and is commemorated at Runnymede.

  3 13 November Directive, Air Ministry to Bomber Command, in Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive, 4:142.

  4 Ibid., 1:383.

  5 By this time, Joe and Duncan Hodgkinson had crewed together with Gerry Roberts on fifteen sorties, and Sid Harding had been on six with them. Duncan and Sid were both Londoners. Duncan was married, with two young children.

  6 Massey Beveridge was a McGill Redmen teammate in 1938. A fighter pilot, he was killed in action over France in 1944.

  7 Referring to the number of crews lost on the Berlin raid.

  Part Four: Holding the Line

  Chapter 27: December Doldrums

  1 W/C Robert Allen, DFC, DSO, had enlisted in the RAF in 1935 and completed his first tour in 1940 as a Hampden pilot in 49 Squadron. He assumed command of 106 Squadron in April 1941 and held that position for the next year, when he was succeeded by Guy Gibson. During his command, he led several of the squadron’s most challenging assignments, including daylight raids on German factories and on battleships at Brest.

  2 Dated “Sunday evening, 15 December,” almost certainly misdated as Sunday was December 14.

  3 Les Jupp, who had been injured in a bailout over England, resumed flying in 78 Squadron and was shot down on a raid on Mainz in August 1942. He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp. Tim Buck was the leader of the Communist Party of Canada.

  4 Airgraphs had just been introduced by Canada’s postal service. For the price of six cents, the sender could submit a single letter-size page to be microfilmed for air transport and enlarged to postcard size on arrival in England, where it would be forwarded by regular mail. The service was one way only, from Canada to the UK. Joe’s parents also sent him airgraphs in December.

  5 Of five other air observers who began around the same time as Joe, three appear to have experienced a similar situation, but completed their tours of operation a few months later.

  6 Sgt. Jack Lloyd Gibson, of Edmonton, who was the navigator on the aircraft. Joe and Jack had begun their training together at No. 1 ITS, and although they completed their air observer training separately, they had sailed to Britain together and found themselves on the same base when Gibson was posted to 97 Squadron in early October. Gibson, aged twenty-one, is buried in Coningsby. This was a costly operation for Bomber Command; six of forty-seven heavy bombers were lost. As Joe would soon learn, one of his classmates and friends, P/O Nicholas Frederick Durban, was killed in the same raid, his 7 Squadron Stirling bomber shot down by German fighters off the French coast. Durban, of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, has no known grave and is commemorated at Runnymede. He was twenty-three years old.

  7 Part of a small, aborted, daylight intruder operation over northwestern Germany. The aircraft crashed in Holland, three of the surviving crew members were captured and taken prisoner of war, including Sgt. Ron Yearsley, WO/AG, who had crewed with Joe on the Hamburg raid on 31 October.

  8 TNA, AIR 14/753, Mole Operations, 5 Group HQ to Stations, 18 January 1942.

  Chapter 28: New Directions

  1 F/Sgt. K. McKenzie, DFM, wireless operator/air gunner, age twenty, with whom Joe had flown on his second operation in August. Also killed on this sortie was air observer F/O Alexander James Fraser, of Ottawa. Fraser, age thirty-one, had enlisted a month before Joe, and had trained at different units. Joe probably never knew him. Although Fraser was posted to 25 OTU, he was not flying during the time that Joe was there due to prolonged illness. He was posted to 106 Squadron on 2 January. On the very next day, his aircraft was lost without trace on a mine-laying operation off the Frisians. The crew is commemora
ted at Runnymede.

  2 Three officers from RCAF Headquarters in London had embarked on a whirlwind inspection tour of nineteen stations in England the week before.

  3 TNA, AIR 14/2433, Operations Room Log Book, RAF Coningsby, 15 January 1942.

  4 TNA, AIR 14/763, Bottomley to Peirse, 25 October 1941.

  5 Fourteen Canadian observers were posted to 106 Squadron between May and October 1941. Up to this point, seven had been killed in action, two taken prisoner of war, and three moved to other squadrons earlier on. Miller had been taken off regular flying to serve as a station officer at Coningsby. Joe was now the last of the original fourteen still in action. Three newly posted Canadian observers had begun operations in January. Each was killed on his first sortie.

  6 Mrs. Lettice later told the Jacobsons that after Roger went missing, Joe had at first put all his private papers together in another room for Monty to take home, but that Joe had taken them away in his valise when he moved to the aerodrome (4 March 1942).

  7 The RCAF had no role in the matter at this point in the war, except to forward Air Ministry approval to Ottawa for pro forma ratification.

  8 It appears to have been routine practice in the RCAF to promote flying personnel by one grade after the first year of service. The promotion had been backdated to 1 October, but Joe had only just been formally advised of it. Roger was similarly promoted effective the same date.

  9 One on an operation on Bremen on 21–22 January, the other gardening the next night. The navigator of the second was Sgt. Stewart Alexander Morrison, of Montreal, who had been posted to 106 Squadron a month previously. Joe would not have known him until his arrival there. This was his first operational flight. Morrison’s aircraft was lost without trace and the crew is commemorated at Runnymede.