Bomber Command
Page 1
RAF BOMBER
COMMAND
Reflections of War
Other volumes in this series
RAF BOMBER COMMAND: REFLECTIONS OF WAR
Volume 1: Cover of Darkness (1939–May 1942)
Volume 2: Live To Die Another Day (June 1942–Summer 1943)
Volume 4: Battles With the Nachtjagd (30/31 March–September 1944)
Volume 5: Armageddon (27 September 1944–May 1945)
First Published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS
Copyright © Martin W Bowman, 2012
ISBN 978-1-84884-494-0
Digital Edition ISBN: 978-1-78346-137-0
The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the Publisher in writing.
Typeset in 10/12pt Palatino by
Concept, Huddersfield
Printed and bound in England by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY
Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword
Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword
Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe
True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword
Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When,
Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing.
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 The Way to the Stars
Chapter 2 The Road to Berlin
Chapter 3 Silver Wings in the Moonlight
Chapter 4 An Orchestrated Hell
Acknowledgements
Gebhard Aders; Harry Andrews DFC; Frau Anneliese Autenrieth; Mrs Dorothy Bain; Günther Bahr; Charlie ‘Jock’ Baird; Harry Barker; Irene Barrett-Locke; Raymond V Base; Don Bateman; Steve Beale; A D ‘Don’ Beatty; Jack Bennett; Andrew Bird; Peter Bone; Alfons Borgmeier; Jack Bosomworth; Len Browning; Don Bruce; George Burton; Jim Burtt-Smith; Maurice Butt; Philip J Camp DFM; City of Norwich Aviation Museum (CONAM); Bob Collis; Jim Coman; B G Cook; John Cook DFM; Rupert ‘Tiny’ Cooling; Dennis Cooper; Ray Corbett; Coen Cornelissen; Leslie Cromarty DFM; Tom Cushing; Hans-Peter Dabrowski; Rob de Visser; Dr. Karl Dörscheln; J Alan Edwards; Wolfgang Falck; David G Fellowes; Elwyn D Fieldson DFC; Karl Fischer; Søren C Flensted; Vitek Formanek; Stanley Freestone; Ian Frimston; Prof. Dr Ing. Otto H Fries; Air Vice Marshal D J Furner CBE DFC AFC; Ken Gaulton; Jim George; Margery Griffiths, Chairman, 218 Gold Coast Squadron Association; Group Captain J R ‘Benny’ Goodman DFC*AFC AE; Alex H Gould DFC; Hans Grohmann; Charles Hall; Steve Hall; Jack F Hamilton; Eric Hammel; Erich Handke; James Harding; Frank Harper; Leslie Hay; Gerhard Heilig; Bob Hilliard; Peter C Hinchliffe; Neville Hockaday RNZAF; Werner ‘Red’ Hoffmann; Ted Howes DFC; Air Commodore Peter Hughes DFC; John Anderson Hurst; Zdenek Hurt; Ab A Jansen; Karl-Ludwig Johanssen; Wilhelm ‘Wim’ Johnen; Arthur ‘Johnnie’ Johnson; John B Johnson; Graham B Jones; Hans-Jürgen Jürgens; Erich Kayser; George Kelsey DFC; Les King; Christian Kirsch; Hans Krause; Reg Lawton; J R Lisgo; Chas Lockyer; Günther Lomberg; Peter Loncke; George Luke; Ian McLachlan; Nigel McTeer; B L Eric Mallett RCAF; Len Manning; The Honourable Terence Mansfield; Eric Masters; Bernard ‘Max’ Meyer DFC; Cyril Miles; Colin Moir; Frank Mouritz; Friedrich Ostheimer; Maurice S Paff; Simon Parry; Path Finder Association; Wing Commander David Penman DSO OBE DFC; Richard Perkins; Peter Petrick; Karl-Georg Pfeiffer; Eric Phillips; Vic Poppa; John Price; Stan Reed; Ernie Reynolds; Peter Richard; Albert E Robinson; Heinz Rökker; Squadron Leader Geoff Rothwell DFC; Fritz Rumpelhardt; David M Russell; Kees Rijken; Eric Sanderson; Klaus J Scheer; Dr. Dieter Schmidt-Barbo; Karl-Heinz Schoenemann; Jerry Scutts; Johan Schuurman; Group Captain Jack Short; Leslie R Sidwell; Don L Simpkin; SAAF Assn; Albert Spelthahn; Dr Ing. Klaus Th. Spies; Dick Starkey; Squadron Leader Hughie Stiles; Mike ‘Taff’ Stimson; Ted Strange DFC; Maurice Stoneman; Ken Sweatman; Paul Todd; Fred Tunstall DFC; Hille van Dieren; George Vantilt; Bob Van Wick; Andreas Wachtel; Georg Walser; David Waters; H Wilde; John Williams; H J Wilson; Henk Wilson; Geoffrey and Nick Willatt; Dennis Wiltshire; Louis Patrick Wooldridge DFC; Fred Young DFM; Cal Younger.
I am particularly grateful to my friend and colleague Theo Boiten, with whom I have collaborated on several books, for all of the information on the Nachtjagd or German night fighter forces contained herein. And, aviation historians everywhere owe a deep sense of gratitude to his and all the other valuable sources of reference listed in the end notes; in particular, those by the incomparable W R ‘Bill’ Chorley, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt and Oliver Clutton-Brock. Finally, all of the late authors’ books, as listed, who are beyond compare. This book and its companion volumes are dedicated to their memory.
CHAPTER 1
The Way to the Stars
It was some time before we realised the importance of Peenemünde. It was engaged in the development of the V-1 and V-2 rockets. At least, on the night of 17 August 1943, we must have delayed their programme somewhat and ensured that London did not receive as many of them as Hitler would have liked. As an afterthought to the raid, I suppose it was useful to the US space programme that we missed Werner von Braun.
Pilot Officer (later AVM) D J Furner CBE DFC AFC
In Jack Furner’s log book his total number of Stirling flights on 214 Squadron is 120, of which 25 were operational. Jack Dixon and his crew and John Verrall’s were the only two crews to survive the whole period March to September of 1943.1 In between Furner’s first op on 4/5 April 1943 and the final one, the last on Berlin on 31 August, came most of the targets in the Ruhr, some repeatedly – names like Duisburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Wuppertal; and Hamburg (several); Turin; Krefeld; Mülheim and Nurnberg. There were also mining sorties in the Baltic, off the Friesians and in the mouth of the Gironde River. If pressed to describe specific raids, Furner’s highlights would be: Wuppertal on a brilliant night seemingly going up in one awful pillar of smoke (‘come and look at this, nav!’); all the other Ruhr towns confused in one’s mind; the chaos below of Hamburg’s ‘firestorm’ and the extraordinary beauty of the Alps in moonlight en route to Turin on 12 August. But the one that stands out above all others would be Peenemünde ‘and for a number of reasons’ as will be seen.
It is well nigh impossible to describe in detail each one of the nightly battles – and battles they were. It happens inevitably that so many things are blurred, except for a few really dramatic moments. I can more easily picture in my mind and try to describe in writing, a typical – or average – operation, rather than any one specific instance.
The average or typical begins with the briefing. Navigators always had a lot more preparatory work to do than other crewmembers and would have to assemble for their detailed planning of log and chart a good hour before the remainder of the crew came in. By the time complete crews w
ere sitting to hear target details, outline of route markings, weather, defences, bomb load, fuel, signals, encouragement from Commanders and any visiting brass, the navigators would have log flight plan and chart ready. Always at the specific request of my Skipper I would have the fighter-belt pencilled in: he would wish to corkscrew all the way through it, regardless of whether there had been any sightings. Assemble all kit – parachute, Mae West (what fame!), sextant and navigation bag with log, charts, maps, star data, protractor, Dalton ‘computer’(!) – simply a graphic representation of the triangle of velocities – dividers, parallel rule. Out to the aircraft at dispersal a good hour before take-off. Run engines. Thorough checks all round each member. I check all navigation equipment – compasses, Gee, H2S, air position indicator, astrograph (a star map), sextant. Shut down. Last smoke and symbolic pee on the tail wheel. Back into that storeys’-high cabin of the Stirling. Smells of petrol and oil and hot metals. Engines – pilot and bomb aimer go meticulously through take off checks. Line up – await green Aldis. Go. Down the runway, all four engines roaring and spitting flame, rotate. Climb at planned rate, with flight plan indicated airspeed and on planned course adjusted for magnetic variation and compass deviation.
Cross UK coast at planned exit point and at planned height. Change course. Continue climbing across North Sea. Test guns. Passing through 10,000 feet, oxygen masks on. Keep continuous log on pro forma, monitor airspeed and course, get fixes on Gee, check wind. Announce enemy coast ahead. Get fix from bomb aimer crossing coast if cloud and visibility allow, check wind. Prepare Skipper for fighter belt: corkscrew: accept that accurate recording of navigational path is now more difficult, as well as stomach more queasy. Other crewmembers report searchlights ahead or off route, or flak, or fighter activity, or ours going down. If somebody were to have switched daylight on at this stage, Heaven knows what we would have seen! Better this individual navigation, though, than the American way all in enforced formation. Too soon the Gee goes – jammed by Jerry. H2S remains but very difficult to decipher inland whilst corkscrewing. Trust to Dead Reckoning and Path Finder markers at points along the route and at the target. Change course as demanded by flight plan. Reckon to be two minutes early over target? Make a triangle – 60° left for two minutes, 120° right for two minutes, resume track. (The rest of the crew hated that – understandably.) Fighter! – call from rear gunner – much more violent evasive action to throw him off. Target approaches, markers, fires if visible; well lit cloud with markers above if not. Pilot responds to Bomb aimer: left – left or right or steady – interminable steady – come on, come on! – Bombs gone. Course home. Caught in searchlight – brilliantly lit up, we’re vulnerable, frightening – violent manoeuvres – hold breath until darkness again. John’s got us out of it. Try to assess average airspeed and course during manoeuvres. Lots of flak but we’re lucky, not a hit. Same thing all the way out back to the coast – only even more vigilant, fighters more evident. Comparative calm of North Sea, course for home base, descending, oxygen mask off, dirty mark around face, familiar red pundit light flashing, turn to land, breathe wonderful East Anglian summer air – ‘Another one tucked away, skip’ shouts the rear gunner. Cigarette, debrief, meal, try to sleep, the sun comes up.
The new recruits to the Squadron were able at briefings to judge the difficulties to be faced by the reaction of the more experienced crews. The groans would be loudest in the briefing room for those demanding a long and deep track over occupied territory – e.g. Berlin and Nurnberg. The next worse would be all the Ruhr targets – much shallower penetration but fiendishly defended. And I suppose the lightest reaction would be for a peripheral target, like Kiel (our first) and Hamburg. This all makes sense when you consider that the chance of survival is least with a long defended track. (I’m not counting the low-level mining trips to the Baltic and the Gironde estuary – but they often had some pretty tracer stuff defending them and there were losses even from those sorties.)
In between operations there would be a lot of local flying – air tests, circuits and bumps, practice bombing, simulated sorties, fighter affiliation, familiarization with new aids and so on. The most significant was H2S airborne radar with a rotating parabolic dish inside a bulge under the fuselage, which interpreted the ground beneath on a cathode ray tube at the navigator’s station, differentiating between dark (no response) for sea, some bright response for land and brighter response still for built up areas. It was a marvel to see but it was crude and because it was transmitting, it drew attention to itself. This airborne radar came onto the Squadron at the beginning of July and Furner was chosen to train other navigators on it.
Summer 1943 was hectic. There were frequent losses: faces would come and go only too quickly but there was little point in dwelling on that. We young men wouldn’t wonder until we were some years older what the resulting sad administration was doing to our kindly ‘uncle’, the Squadron Adjutant George Wright. It was he who would be charged with informing relatives, dealing with personal effects and clearing rooms ready for later arrivals.
But life was not all flying and operations. Crews were granted a week’s leave every six weeks, which Furner believes was unique amongst all the Services. ‘Harris insisted on it.’ While on operations crews took advantage of the Nuffield Leave Scheme. The Foundation paid for accommodation at many hotels in England. On base in the Mess on evenings without flying, an extremely casual and happy-go-lucky atmosphere pervaded, particularly since Chedburgh was a temporary, wartime only station with semi-circular corrugated iron Nissen huts for all offices and accommodation.
There were favourite pubs in Bury St. Edmunds, to which one or other of our broken-down jalopies would carry us; one of the pubs looked exactly like the studio version in The Way to the Stars.
On 8/9 July it was Cologne again. At Syerston 1st Lieutenant Gene Rosner’s crew were on the Battle Order for their 19th operation and they were told that they would be taking R-Robert and a ‘second dickey’. The met forecast was that there would be cumulonimbus clouds up to 20,000 feet over the target. Their trip over the North Sea was uneventful and sure enough, over the Belgian coast they were over the clouds as forecast. Six Mosquitoes on 109 Squadron accurately marked with Oboe sky-marking and another successful raid followed. Warrant Officer Fred Smooker, Rosner’s bomb aimer recalls:
The white flare was dropped at some point north of Cologne where we turned south of the target. Then things began to happen. Searchlights turned the clouds into a dazzling white sea of snow. We began to see that we were not alone on our journey of destruction; in front and to either side could be seen the black silhouettes of our accompanying Lancasters, from whom no help was possible in the event of a disaster. The sea of dazzling white was now beginning to be splashed with jagged cherry-red flashes which disintegrated into red-hot coals. The green flare appeared directly ahead. We were right on track and so was the flak. The jagged flashes were now all around us and I could feel my inside begin its usual churning and my flesh and skin began to tighten, whilst all my instincts told me to cringe and curl up into a ball. The red flare appeared ahead; the pilot told me our airspeed and altitude over the intercom, while I busied myself setting the special adjustments to the bombsight. By now we had ceased our continuous climbing and diving, weaving to port and starboard and were flying straight and level over a white shiny carpet mottled with an angry red glow. One felt that one could get out and walk on it.
Over 280 Lancasters of 1 and 5 Groups devastated the north western and south western sections of the city and a further 48,000 people were bombed out, making a total of 350,000 people losing their homes during the series of three raids in a week. Twenty-four II./NJG1 crews manned the Himmelbett boxes in eastern Belgium and despite being hampered by thick layers of cloud destroyed three Lancasters and claimed another seven Feindberührungen (‘encounters with the enemy’). Seven Lancasters were lost, worst hit being 106 Squadron at Syerston, which accounted for three of the missing aircraft. Fred Smooker got R-Rob
ert’s five tons of HE bombs and incendiaries away and they left the holocaust behind as they headed south. They turned onto a westerly heading and were at 22,000 feet when the starboard outer began heating up. Near Cambrai (Nord) at about 03.30 a fighter attacked and set their starboard inner on fire. On intercom Rosner said ‘Hey you guys, we gotta bail out. Somebody get me my parachute. Bail out, bail out, bail out ...’ The two screaming port engines suddenly stopped dead and the aircraft went down. Only Fred Smooker got out. Rosner and the six others died in the aircraft. They were laid to rest on 11 July. Smooker was not caught by the Germans until after mid-September and did not arrive in PoW camp until about 15 November. For 56 days he was held in solitary confinement in a Paris prison.2
R5573, better known as Admiral-Foo-Banc V and flown by 20-year-old Sergeant Kenneth Hector ‘Wally’ McLean RCAF was shot down by a night fighter NNE of Liége. Because the Squadron often dropped sea mines on Gardening operations and at the time naval officers were attached to the unit, several of the aircraft displayed Admiral-prefixed characters. McLean, from Vulcan, Alberta was on his first trip with his crew, who all died on the Lancaster, one of several specially fitted with bulged bomb doors for the carriage of 8,000lb bombs. Funerals were held on 10 July. The third Lancaster on the squadron that was lost crashed on fenland near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire with the loss of five of the seven-man crew.
It was on 9/10 July that the next Main Force raid was directed to Gelsenkirchen. Thirteen ‘Musical Mosquitoes’ again marked with Oboe sky-marking but the equipment failed to operate in five of the Mosquitoes. A sixth Mosquito dropped sky-markers in error ten miles north of the target and the raid was not successful. Seven Halifaxes and five Lancasters went missing from a force of 418 aircraft.