Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers

by Bruce Lewis

  In the company of about seventy other aircrew, he was sent to Stalag 4B at Muhlburg, near Leipzig. This camp, which was in a filthy state, had been occupied by French, Belgian and Slav prisoners. As soon as the RAF contingent arrived they created hell and the place was cleaned up. Within a very short time the camp was properly organized, with arrangements for football, theatre, bridge, chess, and many other group activities, including, of course, an escape committee. Several escapes were made, but most were unsuccessful, the absconders being brought back to camp within two days. A few of the escapees were never seen again.

  Reg made his attempted break for freedom at the beginning of June, 1944. A group of prisoners were going to break out over the ‘wire’ at night. He and his friend Bob were about 50 yards behind the leading escapees when someone fell over the trip wire. This set off the alarm and within moments there was pandemonium with guard dogs howling and Germans yelling and running in all directions. Fortunately for Reg and Bob they managed to scurry back to their hut undetected and so avoided an uncomfortable session in the ‘slammer’.

  In September a contingent of paratroops, captured after the Arnhem campaign, arrived in transit. Reg, Bob and a Cornishman named Jack Pauly swapped identities with three of the paras. This was to enable the flyers to get out of the camp on working parties. At the main gate they were interrogated and Jack’s true identity was discovered, but his two companions got away with their masquerade. Sent to Kemlitz, they were then split up and served in working parties on opposite sides of the town. Reg was with eight paratroopers and, because he was an experienced ‘Kriegie’ and by now reasonably fluent in German, they elected him their ‘Confidence Man’.

  Their place of work, a chemical factory, was situated about half an hour from the billet. To impress the Germans, Reg and his commando always marched with absolute precision on their way to and from the factory. Their task was to load trucks standing at railway sidings alongside the works. It presented a golden opportunity to sabotage the system. The paras simply swapped the destination labels on the wagons – what should have gone east went west and vice versa. It took the authorities the best part of two months to discover the cause of the chaos.

  The Stabsfeldwebel in charge was a singularly decent man. For instance he allowed them to listen to the English news on his radio. In his wisdom, while letting them remain in the same billet, he sent Reg and the paras to work in a timber mill about eight miles away at Rersdorf. They travelled there each day, leaving at 6.30 am, on a train packed with foreign workers. The saw mill was the next target for sabotage. The paras slaved away, piling the wood into the works at such a rate that eventually they seized up the giant flywheels, and broke the thick pulley belts. Production was brought to a standstill for over two days.

  This incurred not only the extreme displeasure of the Germans, but also upset some of the long-term POWs who, until the arrival of Reg and his paras, had looked on employment in the mill as a comparatively cushy number. However, the efforts of the commando were considerably augmented when a Flying Fortress unloaded its bombs on the mill shortly afterwards. Reg, lying flat on the ground, was shaken by the explosions and the huge logs flying through the air in all directions. About 20% of the bombs were delayed action and these continued to go off over the following two days.

  One Unteroffizier had a particular loathing for Reg and his men. Work was scheduled to stop at 7 pm, but on this occasion he kept them at it well into the night. The commandos made sure that the ice-encrusted baulks of timber were dumped in a position that completely blocked the only exit for the train. The next day the Unteroffizier threatened to send Reg to Buchenwald – a name which meant nothing to him at the time.

  The ‘incorrigibles’ were taken to HQ at Stalag 4F for close interrogation. Although this turned out to be a wasted exercise for the Germans, a finger-printing session was much more revealing. As soon as Reg’s dabs Were on the sheet it was a case of ‘Who are you?’ It was established that he was certainly not Private R.O’ Brian of the Paratroops, but definitely was Flight Sergeant R. Scarth of the RAF. He wondered if this time he had pushed his luck too far.

  Next morning Reg lay in his bed and refused to join the working party. When the Unteroffizier came storming in demanding that he report for duty, Reg told him, ‘I am a Flight Sergeant, and as you are aware, because of my rank the Geneva Convention absolves me from working for the enemy.’ In a fury the officer drew his revolver – ‘I will count up to 5. If you are not outside by then, I shall shoot you!’ ‘If you do,’ replied Reg, ‘then you will have my friends to reckon with.’ The German glanced over his shoulder and saw eight grim-faced paratroops standing in a row behind him. He flounced out of the hut re-holstering his gun.

  One of the paras stayed behind to keep an eye on Reg while the others went back to work. In the afternoon two stony-eyed SS troopers came and collected him and took him back to HQ. He was confronted by the CO, an Austrian Captain who, in the past, had been pleased to trade certain German commodities which Reg and the others needed in exchange for the English cigarettes. The Captain thought the best thing he could do for his ‘problem’ prisoner was to get him back to his original camp as quickly as possible, before less amiable people started to shape his future. So Reg returned to Stalag 4B and spent 28 days in the ‘slammer’. Eventually, the POWs were liberated by the advancing Russians.

  During the period when Reg had been masquerading as paratrooper Bob O’ Brian, who was a married man, he had thought it expedient to invent a wife for himself. Five years previously he had met a girl in Leeds called Peggy and, although they had not seen each other since 1939, they had kept up a correspondence even during his time as a POW. She must have been surprised to receive a letter, in Reg’s familiar handwriting, addressed to Mrs O’ Brian, starting ‘My Darling Wife’, and signed, ‘Your adoring husband, Bob’.

  She contacted the Red Cross people who soon put two and two together. They surmised that Flight Sergeant Scarth had changed his identity for a definite purpose, probably in an attempt to escape. Peggy, who had no idea where Reg’s parents lived, carried out some clever detective work and traced them to their home village of Tingly in Yorkshire. Reg had been writing to them as Uncle Fred and Auntie Marian. Soon, unknown to Reg of course, Peggy was visiting his parents regularly – they had become firm friends and were naturally drawn together by a mutual bond.

  When Reg came home after the war he was astonished to find that Peggy had her feet tucked firmly under his parents’ table. They were married soon afterwards!

  FOUR

  The Flight Engineer

  There was nothing complicated about the two-engine RAF bombers flying at the beginning of the war. A competent pilot had no difficulty in keeping an eye on the limited number of instruments arrayed before him and would quickly spot any indications of trouble. But if, for example, he failed to notice a drop in oil pressure, then it was likely that his ‘second dickie’, his co-pilot, would speedily draw his attention to the fault, except in the case of the Hampden, where, as we have already seen, the second pilot was isolated below his skipper’s feet, busy with navigation!

  With the advent of the true ‘heavy’ bombers, the four-engine Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters, a new era of technical complexity had arrived. In these much bigger, more sophisticated machines an array of panels, one for each of the engines, was covered in a confusing collection of dials and switches and warning lights, all needing to be watched every moment that the aircraft was in the air. These were in addition to the normal flying instruments and were set in a position away from the pilot’s line of vision. At this time it had also been decided to abolish the role of second pilot.

  Obviously an extra member of the bomber team was needed to take care of these increased responsibilities. So it was that the Flight Engineer was introduced. Pilots, bomb aimers, navigators, wireless operators and gunners were, by and large, all trained in their flying duties from scratch after volunteering from civilian life. But the flig
ht engineer was more likely to have been in the RAF already, having served an apprenticeship in one of the engineering trades. Because of this he was usually the only ‘regular’, or career serviceman, in the crew. Yet, just like the others, he too would have volunteered to fly. Such a volunteer was John Roberts. One of my most memorable days at school was when we travelled on an outing by bus to Southampton waters. Apart from gawping in amazement at all the giant ocean liners, including the magnificent Queen Mary, we also visited the RAF seaplane base at Calshot, in the Solent. I did not know, as I admired the swan-like outline of a Short Bros Singapore flying boat drawn up on the concrete slipway, that there was a young RAF apprentice named John Roberts at work on the 560 hp Rolls-Royce Kestrel engines that powered those beautiful ‘boats’. There was not much difference in our ages, and, if I had known him then, I am sure I would have envied him.

  John Roberts was born on 10 September, 1922, at Clacton-on-Sea, after his father’s ill health had obliged the family to move there from London. Mr Roberts had suffered terribly on the Somme during the First World War – he had been gassed, sustained a hole in his head from a shrapnel wound, and was paralysed down one side of his body. Yet, on occasion, father and son would go up to London on a day’s outing. On the way they enjoyed watching the brightly coloured biplanes circling overhead. Indeed, John was probably inspired to volunteer for the RAF more through seeing these aircraft than for any other reason, although, at that time, he had no particular desire to actually fly in them.

  At the County High School he had been good at chemistry, geography and English. It was the time of Munich and, in spite of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler, a spirit of patriotism was growing among the youngsters of Britain. Like several of the brighter pupils in his class he was accepted into the RAF as a boy apprentice at the age of fifteen. That was in August, 1938.

  John soon discovered that his new life at RAF Halton was no sinecure. The pay was minuscule. The discipline bore down on the lads both during working hours and in their leisure time. The apprentices were referred to by the older airmen as ‘Trenchard’s Brats’, after Lord Trenchard, the ‘father’ of the Royal Air Force. It was he who had fought to retain a service independent from the navy and the army, and who had the foresight to see the value of building a force based on technical skills.

  In spite of all, John lapped up the instruction he received. He developed new confidence as his knowledge and competence grew. With the outbreak of war, the apprentices’ worth was recognized. They were proud to be known as The Brats’ – and it became a term synonymous with ability based on sound training. This group, imbued with the ‘Air Force Spirit’, formed a strong foundation without which the RAF could not have functioned in war.

  With the war a new sense of urgency prevailed. The apprenticeship course was shortened by a year. Passing out as a Fitter 2E, John got on with his job of maintaining aero engines, including the Kestrels fitted in tandem to the Singapores. By 1943 he had been promoted to corporal and had developed an ever-increasing itch to fly, so when he saw an Air Ministry memo inviting volunteers for the new aircrew category of flight engineer he applied at once.

  His training for the new job bordered on the bizarre. First of all he was posted to St Athan in South Wales. A six-week ground course in the duties of a flight engineer did little more than emphasize the importance of keeping an eye on the petrol gauges when flying in four-engine aircraft. He discovered a Halifax bomber hidden away in a hangar and assumed that, at some stage in the instruction, the pupils would be given a detailed briefing on this aircraft. In fact they never set foot inside the fuselage!

  Then he went on a short journey further along the Welsh coast to RAF Pembrey, near Llanelly, for another course, this time in air gunnery. Oddly enough, none of it took place in the air! The embryo flight engineers’ gunnery training was limited to practice in Boulton Paul turrets anchored to concrete blocks on the ground. He felt relieved that he was not going to become an air gunner. Cramming his 6 foot 2 inch frame into a Perspex ‘bubble’ was not far short of purgatory.

  Sharing this course were a number of wireless operators and John was amused to find that the engineers were generally better at gunnery than the ‘sparks’. He imagined this was because the engineers, used to noisy machinery, were less affected by the racket inside the turrets as the guns were being fired.

  Unfortunately an unsympathetic permanent staff at Pembrey, from Station Warrant Officer down, made life unpleasant for the aircrew cadets. This state of affairs existed in a few RAF camps, nearly always the ones furthest removed from war activities. It arose through a sense of grievance that these upstart ‘sprogs’ were getting more money and quicker promotion than people who had been around for years. The fact that 60% of Bomber Command aircrew became casualties did not, presumably, enter the equation. It never seemed to strike these disgruntled types that they were at perfect liberty to volunteer for flying duties themselves

  At Pembrey the staff made certain that, when the day’s training had finished, the cadets were kept hanging about long enough to make sure they missed the evening train to Llanelly. Every opportunity was taken to inflict punishment for ‘petty crimes’. One of John’s pals was confined to camp for a week because he had a shoelace missing during a kit inspection.

  Unlike the flight engineers, the wireless operators did receive gunnery practice in the air. To add insult to deprivation, after days of intensive instruction, those cadets who were ex-fitters were ordered to carry out maintenance work on the training aircraft over the weekend. Corporal Roberts’ temper finally boiled over.

  As senior cadet he ordered the others to down tools and then marched them back to the billet. He had started a mutiny. There were few permanent staff on the camp at the weekend and a lone junior duty officer, for whom John felt quite sorry, pleaded with them not to cause trouble. A compromise was reached. John agreed to call off the ‘mutiny’, but only on the understanding that there would be no more maintenance work. Nothing further was heard about the incident and the engineers were not instructed to service any more aircraft.

  It was with relief that John left Pembrey for the Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor. He had been awarded his FE aircrew winged brevet and promoted Sergeant although he had still not flown for a single minute! Almost at once he joined a crew and knew, without doubt, that he would be flying within days, if not hours. At last the chance had come to learn something about the aircraft he was supposed to ‘take care of while it was in flight.

  Occupied with these pleasurable thoughts, he was sitting in a classroom trying to concentrate on an exercise in mental arithmetic. The door opened and a Squadron Leader came in.

  ‘Chap called Roberts here?’

  ‘Yes, Sir’.

  ‘Right Roberts. On your way. You’ re posted to a special duty squadron!’

  ‘But, Sir. I’ ve only just arrived here. I‘ve just joined my new crew. I’ ve had no training in the air!’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Sergeant Roberts. You’ ll get plenty of experience on the squadron!’

  And that was that. Within hours he had arrived at 161 Special Duties Squadron, Tempsford, near Cambridge.

  161 Squadron had an interesting history. It had been formed in February, 1942, from a nucleus provided by the King’s Flight. It operated with a variety of aircraft over the war years, including Whitleys, Stirlings, Halifaxes, Lysanders and Hudsons.

  The squadron’s duties involved delivering supplies and agents to Resistance units on the Continent. The smaller Hudsons and Lysanders actually landed on fields in enemy-occupied territory to collect agents – a risky business which often resulted in high casualties.

  By the time John took up his duties the Whitleys and Stirlings had been withdrawn from service and the Halifaxes were performing the main ‘dropping’ operations.

  RAF Tempsford was shared by two squadrons. The other, 138, was engaged in similar work, but often operated further afield, even
flying as far as Poland. Foreign aircrew were much in evidence on 138 Squadron, particularly Poles and Czechoslovakians. Again, losses were sometimes severe.

  It is not difficult to imagine John’s bewilderment. When he arrived at his new squadron he knew nothing of the clandestine affairs in which Tempsford was involved. The more questions he asked, the more blank faces he encountered. Security was impressively tight. Later, after he had been on 161 for some time, he realized that even the ground staff working on the aircraft had little idea of the squadron’s true function.

  The Squadron Leader had been right – experience came fast. On the day of his arrival he was sent up to perform the flight engineer’s role of air-testing a Halifax’s engines. The ink had hardly dried in his log book, as he proudly wrote up his very first flight in an aeroplane, before he was ordered up again on a night-test.

  The following day his name was among those listed for operations. The interesting thing about John’s log book entries is the absence of any target destinations. Only the duration of the flights is recorded with no mention of where they had been. On his first mission, for instance, on 12 May, 1943, there is an entry showing that they flew for just over 7 hours. John remembered this as a longish trip to southern France.

  He remembered, also, that he made something of a faux pas on this first ‘op’. The Halifaxes of 161 had had their mid-upper turrets removed. They had intruded well down into the fuselage amidships taking up too much room. Below this point, a large round hole had been cut in the floor of the aircraft, covered by semi-circular doors. Through this aperture the parachuting agents made their exit. Various items of equipment for the Resistance fighters were also despatched this way – weapons, explosives, torch batteries and even pigeons in boxes, each with their own little parachute.