Whilst over the target area, I would often see the fighters attacking bombers silhouetted against the fires on the ground. However, once away from the brightly lit area identifying a fighter was not easy against a black sky. The German night fighter always had the advantage over the bombers and very few were shot down by bomber crews. It was always a great relief when the bomb aimer said, ‘Bombs gone’. The aircraft would rear up and wobble as the weight of the bombs left the aircraft, then we knew all we had to do was go home but that could be nearly as bad as getting there. The route home would be more or less straight apart from trying to avoid any known well defended areas. On some nights if conditions were right the Skipper would climb to 27,000 feet then put the nose down and really belt for home. The only snag being that by flying so high the temperature outside was sometimes as low as 60 below freezing. This froze the anti-freeze in the pipes that fired the guns in the rear turret making them useless until they thawed out at a lower altitude. However, the mid-upper guns were electrically fired so were not affected.
Once we had crossed the enemy coast and were well out over the North Sea the Skipper would bring us down to 10,000 feet, below oxygen-using height. Everything would then start to warm up and we could relax a little more. Tommy Evans the bomb aimer would come to the rear turret and bring me a flask of coffee and although smoking was banned while flying, many of us broke that rule. After all the operational stress we had suffered over the past few hours that mug of coffee and a Woodbine went down really well. I personally always carried a good supply of baccy and well-filled petrol lighter, just in case we were shot down and managed to get on the run for a while.
On odd occasions a message would come from base that Bandits (enemy fighters) were suspected of being in the area. That meant no relaxation until we were actually back over base. We would then be given a height at which to circle the airfield and a landing number. When our turn came Air Traffic Control radioed permission to land and once down the Skipper taxied the aircraft around the perimeter track to our dispersal and we were welcomed back by our ground crew before being picked up by the crew bus and taken to the locker room. After handing in our flying gear we then went along to the debriefing room where a WAAF officer served us with a mug of coffee well laced with rum and the Padre would hand sandwiches around. Then we would sit around a table with an intelligence officer and debriefing would begin. ‘Did you have any difficulty finding the target? At what time were the TIs placed on the aiming point? How heavy was the flak? Did you encounter any fighters? Did you see any aircraft shot down? How far from the target could the fires be seen?’ and many other such questions until he had all the information we could give. Next we collected our personal belongings, including a brown envelope containing our wills and last letters home. These had been deposited and locked away in the Squadron office for safe keeping before take-off. After that we went to the Mess for an aircrew breakfast before seeking out our billet in a state of utter exhaustion. Hopefully we could get a good morning’s sleep before being called once again to go to war.18
On 7/8 August 197 Lancasters of 1, 5 and 8 Groups attacked targets in Genoa, Milan and Turin. One of the Path Finders who led the way for the Main Force was Wing Commander John Searby of 83 Squadron who was the Master Bomber or the ‘Master of Ceremonies’ at Turin. Before joining the Path Finders, Searby had commanded 106 Squadron at Syerston where he had succeeded Wing Commander Guy Gibson when he left to raise 617 Squadron. Searby’s first meeting with Gibson in the autumn of 1942 was on posting to 106 as a flight commander and his interview was not the happiest. Searby recalled that Gibson had lost three ‘good crews’ the previous night over Cologne and he was short of sleep and a ‘bit on edge’. In reply to his question about his past history Searby said that he had recently come off the Atlantic Ferry, following which he had done a few Wellington sorties ‘but nothing of any consequence’. Gibson heard Searby out, obviously not interested and ‘impatient for him to finish’. Gibson walked over to the window with his back to Searby and then spat out: ‘Atlantic Ferry! You can forget all that. This is the real thing. And anyone who doesn’t like it can get out.’ Searby had said nothing. He began to dislike Gibson but he saw the letters to the next-of-kin lying on his CO’s desk awaiting signature and made allowance for his mood. Later Searby learned that writing letters was always his first priority. ‘Gibson was truthful if somewhat blunt’ recalled Searby. They became good friends and few months later Searby succeeded him. Later, in the Path Finder Force under Don Bennett ‘where the task was the more demanding’, Searby’s technical skill, combined with his leadership (and humanity) was learned from Gibson.19
The Master Bomber arrived over Turin first to take charge of the dropping of marker flares by the Path Finders and he then continued to circle over the target area to orchestrate the bombing more effectively. When he noticed that creep-back was taking place he instructed the later bombers to aim forward of the fires so that bombing was more concentrated in the target area. This achieved only limited success but this was a trial in preparation for the role Searby would fulfil in the successful raid on Peenemünde later that same month.
Geoffrey Willatt, bomb aimer in Pilot Officer Robbie Robertson’s crew in 106 Squadron, which were part of the force attacking Milan, recalls:
Milan was a quite different trip involving a long haul over German-occupied France to Lake Geneva, where Switzerland was lit up like a Christmas tree. The Swiss had obviously decided that Allied aircraft must not mistake their towns for the blacked-out French ones. Now we were going over the Alps to Italy. We were gazing at the snow-covered mountains not far below, when a little stream of tracer bullets popped up towards us like a string of luminous sausages – quite impossible from the top of a mountain but we all saw it. Robbie said, ‘Do you think this was Hannibal’s route over the Alps with his elephants?’ I had been supplied with maps of North Africa, because the loss of one engine would restrict the height of the flight home, preventing a return over the Alps. I couldn’t help half-wishing this might happen. In fact, one crew did have to do this and landed in the desert, being immediately surrounded by fearsome Bedouins on camels, with primitive rifles. They fired a green flare, scaring them off and then found they were, in fact, friendly and took the crew to the nearest Allied base, where the desert war was in progress. A new engine was fitted after a few days and they were able to fly home. I bombed Milan from much lower than usual – about 10,000 feet. The resulting photo showed Milan Cathedral – what desecration!
Then to Mannheim, on 9/10 August, attacked all the time by very intense flak, some of which hit us with a noise like rattling gravel thrown up at a window – very loud really, to be heard above the roar of the engines. One piece of shrapnel made a hole in the Perspex nose through which I was looking and a small piece hit me in the eye and made my eyes water but didn’t cause much harm. They found holes under the fuselage when we got back.
A total of 457 aircraft raided Mannheim. Bomber Command lost six Halifaxes and three Lancasters. Two of the aircraft were shot down by Leutnant Norbert Pietrek of 2./NJG4 at Florennes airfield in southern Belgium. Pietrek, who had claimed two bombers destroyed on the night of the last Mannheim raid in April, was again piloting a Bf 110F-4. His crew consisted of Unteroffizier Paul Gärtig, his Bordfunker whom he called Paulchen (little Paul), and his Bordschütze was Otto Scherer, who was a replacement for Bauchens who had hepatitis and was in hospital. Pietrek’s first victim of the night was K-King, a Halifax on 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron RCAF at Gransden Lodge piloted by Flight Lieutenant Kenneth MacGregor Gray RCAF who was from Medicine Hat, Alberta, as was one his crew, five of whom were Canadians. Pietrek slid under the bomber and from twenty metres below, intending to fire his four machine guns and two 2cm cannon into its starboard wing. Only the four machine guns fired and one of these failed and could not be cocked, but it was enough. The Halifax burst into flames and plunged burning over his port wing to crash at Awenne in Belgium. All seven crewmembers were kil
led.
With only three machine guns working Pietrek stalked his second victim, K-King of the Air, a Lancaster piloted by John Whitley on 61 Squadron at Syerston. The all-sergeant crew were on their fifth operation. Again Pietrek positioned his Bf 110 twenty metres beneath his quarry and then he pulled up and fired a full burst into the two starboard engines. He must have hit him he thought, but the Lancaster, which jettisoned its bombs, flew on apparently undamaged. Another of Pietrek’s guns had failed and he was now down to two ‘little squirters’. This left only the fuselage as the aiming point and if possible the four 1,000 rounds of ammunition in the rear turret so Pietrek tried for the ammunition. Sergeant John Topham Kendall RCAF the rear gunner saw the Bf 110 and bailed out immediately but his head hit Pietrek’s port wing. Next Pietrek took out Sergeant Nevil Temple Holmes the mid-upper gunner, and finally, at ten metres’ range the Leutnant fired into the bottom right of the rear turret where two of the four ammunition boxes were located and then he did the same to the bottom left. After about ten seconds there were flames. The Lancaster caught fire at the back ‘like a cigar’ and a few minutes later went down. Sergeant George Spriggs the flight engineer was killed. In the bright glare of the crash the Bf 110 crew saw four open parachutes descending. As the inferno spread ‘Fred’ Gardiner the WOp had wasted no time in bailing out. Completely disorientated he pulled the ripcord. He and John Whitley, ‘Whiz’ Walker and Peter Smith the navigator all evaded. Pietrek landed back at Florennes where his crew found a scrap of skin with a bunch of red hair on the port wing of their Bf 110.20 Geoffrey Willatt continues:
Nürnburg came next. It was strange to think we’d damaged this lovely medieval city, which I’d visited only a few years before. We were now the most experienced aircrew on our station and were sent to a bomb-sight factory on a morale-boosting tour, being fussed over by a lot of factory girls. We weren’t allowed in one part of the factory which was top secret. In fact they were making a bomb sight, which we were currently using and was almost out of date! The bomb-sights, in any case, at this stage in the war, were really very primitive and indeed, after the war, it was found that our bombing was not very efficient and depended on each individual crew’s navigation to find the target and the bomb-aimer, me for instance, pressing the ‘tit’ at the right time. I wonder if the American method of formation flying to the target, relying on one master navigator and one master bomb-aimer was better? There was a radiogram in the Officers’ Mess and a pile of records, one of which had been a favourite – the Inkspots singing I like coffee, I like tea. Dickie knew that there was a superstition in the Mess that anyone putting this record on would be shot down that night but he played it with a large grin saying, ‘What nonsense’ and of course, we came back safely from Nürnburg that night.
Eighteen aircraft did not return. One was ditched in the English Channel and the crew taken into captivity. Five more crashed in England; a Stirling dived into Pevensey Bay and a Halifax was abandoned near Selsey Bill. Others returned with dead and wounded on board their aircraft. Reg Fayers the navigator on Halifax H-Honkytonk on 76 Squadron at Holmeon-Spalding Moor said in a letter to his wife Phyllis at Ploughlane Dairy in Sudbury, Suffolk that they were on their way back from Nuremburg when he visited the Elsan toilet just as they ran into flak. A large chunk of shrapnel hit the port outer engine, which promptly caught fire:
At the same minute Sergeant Herbert Thomas Whittlesea – a nice kid with bags of enthusiasm – who was flying second dickey, said, ‘I think I’ve been hit skip. I think I’m going to pass out.’ By the time we were out of the flak, Lew [Sergeant Lew Barnes] found Whitt to be unconscious – no more than five minutes at the most. It took several more minutes for Lew and Phil to get Whitt back to the rest position and find the wound and treat him. Anyway I think that Whitt was already dead. He died very soon anyway and there was so much blood about that he must have died from the loss of it and the shock of course.
They eventually landed at Ford. Fayers wrote in his log: ‘second dickey died.’ It was simply nothing more than that. Next day they examined Honkytonk and discovered that the flak fragment that killed Whittlesea was no more than an inch and a half across. It had come through the nose of the Halifax, up through two pieces of metal, right through Fayers’ seat while he was at the Elsan, hitting Whittlesea in an important artery in his thigh and he bled to death. Fayers added, ‘I don’t think there’s more than a breath of wind or a feather’s weight between life and death.’21
But life had to go on. ‘Dirty footmarks on the Officers’ Mess ceiling could be seen one morning’ says Geoffrey Willatt. At a party the night before, a WAAF officer had been turned upside down after dipping her shoes in paint and held to walk upside down. I wasn’t there. The CO was very cross and made the culprits clean it off and redecorate the ceiling.’
The night of Thursday 12th/Friday 13th of August was a long one for 321 Lancasters and 183 Halifaxes to Milan, while 152 aircraft of 3 and 8 Groups were detailed to bomb Turin.
Flight Sergeant Alan Larden RCAF the bomb aimer on Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron’s Stirling crew on 218 Squadron, recalls:
On 12th August we set out in O-Oboe on our first Italian raid. The ‘we’ were Art Aaron, Cornelius ‘Bill’ Brennan RCAF, Thomas ‘Jimmy’ Guy, Malcolm ‘Mitch’ Mitchem, Thomas ‘Mac’ McCabe, Jimmy Richmond and me. Two Canucks and five Limeys. It was a lovely, warm evening as we left and it was just getting dusk. The red and green lights and powerful throb of 80-odd aircraft engines and the host of well-wishing Norfolk villagers filled us with buoyant, adventurous spirit, which was a welcome change to our nightly quota of 30 and 40 per cent losses in the first days of the ‘Battle of the Ruhr’. We got the green and our trundle changed to a run and just as we settled into the old charging gallop down the runway we left the deck to the waves and cries of the good folk of Downham Market, who lined our perimeter fence and adjacent roads. The old routine started. A bit of brake to stop the wheels turning; wheels up, 2,450 revs; flaps in, etc and our climb until ‘set course’ time.
Malcolm Mitchem continues:
The late take-off gave a chance for darkness to settle in on the southerly course towards the Channel and the French coast, so power was soon reduced for economical cruise setting to allow Oboe to climb on its long journey as fuel burned off. The route outbound took us across London and the stream of over 200 heavy bombers halted traffic in the streets as occupants looked up and waved; Londoners coming out into their streets and gardens waved as they surmised that retribution for their miseries of enemy night-bombing was passing overhead.
They had been well briefed and were quite pleased with the target; Turin for the Stirlings and Milan for 6 Group. One of those heading for Milan was Sergeant William Thomas Kent, a Halifax tail gunner who was born in New York and brought up all over America. He looked out and thought that the little villages ‘sure looked pretty’. Kent, whose father was an actor, lived with his stepfather, a night-club owner, for nine years in Hollywood, California, joined the RCAF and put in for flying. But after he ‘washed out’ he had put in for air gunnery. He was in Coastal Command for a while, on Sunderlands, before being sent to a bomber squadron. All the rest of the crew were English. ‘The pilot got married on a 48-hour pass and we all had a big party. His wife was a WAAF and so was his sister and so was his mother. Wonderful family they made.’ Kent had flown his first op to Dortmund on 4/5 May and had been on the second one and the three to Hamburg in July:
On the second Dortmund ‘job’ we got hit hard. Our port engine blew up. We went into a dive from 20,000 feet and didn’t pull out until 2,000. If I could have picked up my parachute that night I would have bailed out but the force of the pullout was too much. I couldn’t get out of my seat, so I stuck there. Had a lot of fun shooting out the searchlights when we got down on the deck . . .
Hitting Italian targets was fun and such pretty scenery. On the run to Milan he kept looking at the Alps and saying to his pilot on intercom, ‘Hell those mountains don’t
look so big. We’ve got bigger ones out in California.’ And then the pilot said to him, ‘Well just look to your left, right now’. Kent did: ‘And there was a big damn peak sticking up in the moonlight with snow all over it. Mont Blanc.’22
Milan was considered a successful raid and two Halifaxes and one Lancaster were lost to enemy action. Two others collided and crashed at Plaidstow, Sussex and a 101 Squadron Lancaster collided with a Beaufighter at Ford on landing. Sergeant Graham ‘Mick’ Cullen, a New Zealander, was the wireless operator on Flight Lieutenant Robert Megginson’s Stirling crew on XV Squadron at Mildenhall. Megginson was a second tour man who had completed a period of instructing in Canada. Cullen recalls:
Trips to Northern Italy were regarded as the best of the lot, very little flak and not too much interference from fighters. These raids were usually carried out during the full moon period and the magnificent sight of the snow covered Alps had to be seen to be believed. On one occasion, as the Stirling droned its way towards the target flying about 1,000 feet above the mountains, the crew marvelled at the brilliance of the moonlight reflecting its silver rays on the snow covered backcloth. Suddenly, a pyrotechnic scene erupted ahead of us as the green and red marker flares cascaded down marking the death of a pathfinder aircraft. As we watched in awe we clearly saw the mushrooming canopies of the parachutes as some of the crew floated down. I must admit that even our sorrow and concern for the crew could not override the beauty of the scene.23
Bomber Command Page 5