Halifax crews on 78 Squadron at Breighton eat breakfast after returning from Berlin in the early hours of 1 September 1943. (IWM)
The crew of the first Canadian-built Lancaster X to arrive in Britain, KB700, which was delivered to 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron RCAF and christened the Ruhr Express, on arrival at Northolt, Middlesex on 15 September 1943. Left to right: Squadron Leader Reg Lane DSO DFC, pilot; Pilot Officer Johnny Carrere, navigator; Sergeant Ross Webb, WOp/AG; Flight Sergeant Reg Burgar, mid-upper gunner with ‘Bambi’; Pilot Officer Steve Boczar, second pilot; Flight Sergeant R Wright DFM, bomb aimer and Sergeant Mike Baczinski, flight engineer. Reg Lane had arrived in England in August 1941 to train as a bomber pilot and he flew a tour of thirty ‘ops’ on Halifaxes on 35 Squadron. He flew a second tour on path finders and in July 1943 was awarded the DSO after completing fifty-one operations over an eighteen-month period. When he returned to Canada to fly the Ruhr Express to England the press claimed that he had been selected ‘as much for his photogenic appearance as his brilliant piloting skills’. In October 1943 he took over 405 Squadron and on 17 November flew the first trip of his third tour. At the age of 24 Reg Lane was promoted to Group Captain and he flew his last op as Master Bomber against Caen just before the invasion. Later in the year he was awarded a bar to his DFC. He returned to Canada in June 1946. The Ruhr Express later joined 419 ‘Moose’ Squadron RCAF at Middleton St George where it was destroyed when it ran off the end of the runway on the return from Nuremberg on its 49th operational sortie, on 3 January 1945. (IWM)
Bristol Hercules air-cooled radial engined Lancaster II DS689 S-Sugar on 426 Squadron at Linton on Ouse, which was lost on the operation on Stuttgart on 7/8 October 1943 when it crashed at Rachecourt-sur-Blaise. Pilot Officer Malcolm Barnes Summers RCAF and five of his crew were killed. Two men evaded capture.
Debriefing a 1660 HCU crew at Swinderby on 23 November 1943 following the raid on Berlin. Twenty-six aircraft, eleven of them Lancasters, were lost. 1660 HCU had been formed from the Conversion Flights on 61, 97 and 106 Squadrons in October 1942. Twenty-four OTUs (Operational Training Units) and eight HCUs (twelve of them equipped or partly equipped with Lancasters at one time or another) contributed mixed crews of pupils and instructors for operations. Additionally, there were four Lancaster Finishing Schools. (IWM)
Station personnel at Fiskerton look at the night flash photographs following the 22/23 November Berlin raid. (IWM)
On the Leipzig operation on 4 December 1943, Lancaster III, ED470 O-Orange on 50 Squadron was raked by fire from a night fighter, which shot part of the tail-plane away, destroyed the flaps and damaged both gun turrets. Flying Officer J Lees RCAF (standing, left) bombed the target before flying the battle-scarred aircraft home to Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire. The holes in the fuselage were made by the night-fighter’s 20mm cannon shells. ED470 went MIA on 61 Squadron on 23/24 September 1944 when it crashed into the Waal on the raid on Münster. Flying Officer Albert Keith Hornibrook RCAF and crew were killed. (IWM)
Lancaster II DS704 EQ-W on 408 ‘Goose’ Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse, which was lost with Pilot Officer L C Morrison RAAF’s crew on the operation on Frankfurt on 20/21 December 1943.Morrison and three of his crew evaded, two were killed and one was taken into captivity.
On the night of 20/21 December 1943, Halifax II HR868/MH-B on 51 Squadron at Snaith was attacked by a night fighter en route to Frankfurt. The bomb aimer was killed and a fire started in the bomb bay, which blew itself out, but it was not possible to jettison the bombs. HR868 was repaired and later served on 1656 HCU. (IWM)
Lancaster III ED713 Nulli Secundus on 576 Squadron at Elsham Wolds which FTR with Flying Officer Richard Lloyd Hughes and crew on 23/24 December 1943 on the raid on Berlin when it crashed hear Hannover. Hughes and three of his crew were killed; three crewmembers survived and were taken prisoner.
Lancaster I R5729/KM-A on 44 ‘Rhodesia’ Squadron at Dunholme Lodge, Lincolnshire just prior to the Berlin operation on the night of 2/3 January 1944. R5729 and Pilot Officer Louis Curatolo RCAF and crew FTR from the operation on Brunswick on 14/15 January 1944. This aircraft had completed more than seventy operations, the first being to Duisburg in July 1942. (IWM)
A crew on 44 ‘Rhodesia’ Squadron are debriefed at Dunholme Lodge following the raid on Berlin on 3 January 1944. (IWM)
Pilot Officer V A Reed DFM, a gunnery instructor and a veteran of one tour of ‘ops’, points out the recognition characteristics of the Short Stirling to air gunners on a refresher course at a gunnery school in January 1944.
Lancaster JO-P on 467 Squadron RAAF snowed-in at Waddington in January 1944.
(Left) Pilot Officer Cyril Arthur Wakley on 97 Squadron at his wedding. He and three of his Lancaster crew were killed on the operation on Berlin on the night of 20/21 January 1944. The dead included his rear gunner, Technical Sergeant Ben H Stedman USAAF. The other three members of the crew were taken into captivity.
(Right) Maurice Chick and his crew on 83 Squadron beside Lancaster III JA967 The Saint He Will Be Back. This aircraft and Flight Lieutenant Horace Robert Hyde’s crew were lost on 29 January 1944 when they were involved in an outbound collision with a 463 Squadron RAAF Lancaster and crashed on the Danish Island of Als. There were no survivors from either crew. Hyde had previously had a miraculous escape when his Lancaster (JA686) exploded at dispersal at Wyton on the night of 26/27 November 1943 after an electrical fault ignited the photo flash. One of his crew died and two others, who were injured, died a few hours later. A WAAF and four airmen were killed on the ground.
Sergeant R Shorter, formerly with the Metropolitan Police, sews the aircrew brevet and stripes onto his tunic after passing out as a flight engineer at 4 School of Technical Training at St Athan in South Wales in February 1944. (IWM)
Pilot Officer C Calton on 619 Squadron in February 1944.
CHAPTER 2
The Road to Berlin
We approached Berlin through a vast number of searchlights, with flak bursts all around. There were dark silhouettes of other bombers and night fighters passing and re-passing in front and around. We saw one bomber in front being hit and bursting into flames. One parachute was seen to open but the rest of the crew ‘bought it’. We successfully ran the gauntlet and dropped our bombs over the biggest and widest conflagration of fires, flashes and columns of smoke.
Geoffrey Willatt, bomb aimer, 106 Squadron,
Berlin raid 23/24 August 1943
At airfields throughout Bomber Command on 23 August 1943 a rumour spread that the bombing of Berlin was on the cards. Geoffrey Willatt on Robbie Robertson’s crew on 106 Squadron at Syerston recalls: ‘Sure enough, on entering the briefing room, there was the large map plainly showing that Berlin was the target for 710 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings.’1
James Campbell, a Scot born in Inverness, who flew 38 operations on Halifax bombers on 158 Squadron at Lissett, which flew the most Halifax sorties in Bomber Command, describes the scene at briefing time:2
Eye catching Air Ministry contents bills with bold headlines screaming, ‘Have You Done This?’ ‘This is Important’. ‘Remember That?’ plastered the green painted walls of the main briefing room. Aircrews sprawled over the rough wooden forms and leaned inertly across the ink-stained tables. Others, who could not find seats, lounged along the walls in attitudes of complete and utter boredom. Through the blue-white haze of tobacco smoke a hundred-and-sixty voices rose in a noisy babble. The older crews made pungent remarks, bitterly resenting that the early transport into town had been cancelled until the briefing was over. A shuffling of massed feet, punctuated by a few wooden forms crashing to the floor, greeted the Wing Commander [C C ‘Jock’ Calder] as he entered. He leapt lightly on the raised dais in front of the huge wall map constructed from sections of Mercator charts. He searched the rows of white faces in front of him, contemplating for a full half minute the assortment of brevets and uniforms. ‘Sit down, gentlemen! Smoke, if you wish,’ he said crisply. The clamour of conversation
had died down and the aircrews were seated quietly on the wooden forms in front of the plain tables. The Wing Commander toyed with a bright red pin. Attached to the pin was a long narrow red cord. He surveyed the room for a few moments . . . ‘Tonight – it’s Berlin again!’ He waited until the low murmur of whispered comments died. He handed the red cord to the Squadron navigation officer and watched him plunge the pin into the black square that was Lissett. Deftly the navigation officer placed another pin in a minute triangle over a DR position in the North Sea. Swiftly, from there, he laid off the legs to the enemy coast, then across Germany to Berlin.
‘I don’t put a great deal on what they think about you at Group. If you have had higher losses than other squadrons, then you’re obviously not as efficient as they are . . . And if you go out thinking you won’t come back’ thundered the Wing Commander, ‘you give the Hun that psychological advantage which comes from your own inferiority.’ A cathedral silence stifled the room. Someone at the back coughed. The sound reverberated sharply. ‘For the benefit of the new crews, I must remind you that you do not divulge the target or anything which may identify it – not even to the rest of your crew. They will know soon enough at the main briefing at 17.00 hours.’
When the wing commander completed his briefing of the pilots, the navigation officer took over. Then came the bombing officer. Slowly and clearly they gave their instructions, repeating some points, stressing others. Two hours later, the main briefing hall was packed. This time the gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers were in the big room. The wing commander, a billiard cue in his right hand, traced on the map the course and heights they were to fly at, the estimated time of arrival at their turning points. He told them – and there was a sigh of relief at his words – that twenty minutes before they crossed the enemy coast 22 aircraft from the OTUs would make a dummy feint a hundred miles from their landfall.
The Bombing Leader said his piece, thankful he himself was not going out; he had an unpleasant memory of the last time he had gone to Berlin. He revealed that the Pathfinders would take as their aiming point the Unter-den-Linden. They would mark it with red indicators. The backers-up would aim at the reds with green markers in as tight a circle as the Mark 14 bombsight would allow.
‘So your primary aiming points are the reds. If they are bombed out or otherwise obscured, bomb the greens.’ He moved over to allow the Met Officer to be seen. Suddenly he hesitated; ‘Remember,’ he added sternly. ‘Check your bombing stations for hang-ups.’
The Met Officer, a mild soft-spoken man with large horn-rimmed glasses, nervously unrolled his chart. He might as well keep it rolled, he thought. It was always the sign for a ripple of laughter to go round the room. He resented deeply this enforced role of briefing jester, for there were only two questions they ever wanted to know. The rest were phrased either to raise a laugh or make him look foolish. Glancing apprehensively at his weather chart, he was about to amplify a point he was making when a long-haired bomb aimer with a Cockney accent rose to his feet. ‘Say, what’s it like over the target? Is it likely to be clear?’
He waited for a moment. He half turned to the Wing Commander and the Group Captain. They were smiling faintly but still, they were smiling. The Met Officer spun round quickly, flushed and icily retorted; ‘I was coming to that. Obviously, since you are to bomb visually, we expect fairly clear conditions.’ A loud cheer burst from the centre of the hall as they applauded his retort . . . Finally, the wing commander stepped briskly forward. ‘That’s all then, except – Good Luck Gentlemen and Good Bombing.’
Seventeen Mosquitoes were being used to mark various points on the route to Berlin in order to help keep the Main Force on the correct track and Wing Commander ‘Johnny’ Fauquier DSO** DFC the Canadian Commanding Officer on 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron RCAF was the Master Bomber. Fauquier ‘had been a bush pilot in the 1930s, a splendid flyer who had flown in all sorts of aeroplanes in the northern territories. He was really experienced and was regarded as a real warrior.’3 He had made a name for himself as a tough individual of few words; his curt manner meant that he did not have to say a great deal. Later, he would step down from the prized rank of Air Commodore to take command of 617 Squadron from Wing Commander James ‘Willie’ Tait DSO* DFC.4
‘Mick’ Cullen the wireless operator on Flight Lieutenant Robert Megginson’s crew on XV Squadron recalls:
Having reached the turning point 30 miles south of Berlin, our navigator, Pilot Officer Burrows, gave Megginson the new course. We carried out our bomb run without any problems and when Andy Haydon called ‘bombs gone’ Megginson turned onto the course for home. It was at this point we were attacked by a night fighter, which fired aggressively before losing us. The Skipper called for a damage report and one by one the crew responded from their respective stations that all was well. That is except for ‘Mitch’. There being no reply, Megginson instructed me to investigate. I made my way down the fuselage towards the rear turret, feeling slightly apprehensive. The turret was jammed but with the aid of an axe I managed to break open the doors. The night fighter had turned the turret into a twisted mass of tangled steel and shattered perspex and there, slumped over the gun butts, lay Mitch. I gently eased him back and found he had been killed by a solitary bullet through his left eye. I informed the Skipper of the situation and then proceeded to remove Mitch’s body from the turret. I struggled for a few minutes and then called Andy Haydon on the intercom to come down and assist me and between us we managed to extricate ‘Mitch’ from the wreckage. Although the guns were useless, Megginson requested me to occupy the shattered turret to watch for night fighters on the homeward Journey. With no heating it was a cold, uncomfortable and unenviable trip. On return to Mildenhall the rest of the crew were given a few days’ leave. We all travelled to Rugby to attend Mitch’s funeral.’5
Sergeant Ron James had decided that he was going with his crew on the operation – their 13th – even though he had seen the MO about a rash that had appeared on his body and which was diagnosed as shingles:
It was not an entirely brave decision, for I realized, that if at the end of our tour I still had ops to make up, it would mean I would have to fly with another crew to finish my quota – rather a daunting prospect if that crew was fresh out of Conversion Unit. Berlin or the ‘Big City’ was never easy; in fact it was bloody hard and here I was a willing volunteer! ‘At least,’ I thought to myself, ‘here we are flying through 7/10th cloud cover; only sixty miles from the target and no sign of trouble.’ Then it happened! We hit a real bad storm and started to ice up. The only way through was under it, so down we went and by the time we had fought a way out, there was Berlin stretched out before us. Hundreds of searchlights were sweeping the sky, a sky now completely clear of cloud. It is perhaps perverse to say that there was no sign of flak but this could only mean that night fighters were up in force. By the time we had dropped our bombs we had barely reached our normal ceiling and thus far we had been lucky but now that luck changed. A Master Searchlight caught us spot on and within seconds we were held by at least thirty others and were well and truly ‘coned’. If AA guns had been used I think our chances of survival would have been minimal but on this particular night it was the turn of their fighters. ‘Gunners watch out – a Boozer warning.’ Even as Bill Day was throwing Roger into a series of turns and dives, he still managed to keep us informed – not that we needed it.
‘Fighter astern and below – corkscrew – Go!’ from Mitch [Sergeant Colin Mitchinson the Australian rear gunner] as a FW 190 came into attack. The fighter closed and raked our aircraft with his cannons but Mitch caught it with a well aimed burst from his Brownings and we saw him break up and fall away. All this action was happening within seconds. Even whilst the combat was taking place, I reported two other 190s coming in to attack: one on the port side, the other on the starboard. It was unfortunate that our port inner engine, the one which powered my turret, was knocked out by the first burst of cannon fire – so, apart from giving ev
asive action commands, I was unable to help Mitch in any way.
Once again we were hit; and now in a vertical dive. Someone screamed: there was a smell of burning and petrol fumes. This, I thought, was the time to get out; convinced that the aircraft was out of control. Even as I struggled from my seat, it was obvious from the G-force that no way I was going to make it. I relaxed and a great calm came over me as I sat waiting for the inevitable. What happened next I can only describe as miraculous – my mind floated clear of my body and I could see myself sitting in the turret – ‘If this is death,’ I thought ‘what is there to be afraid of? It is wonderful but what the folks will think back home – I am too young to die.’ Suddenly, I became aware that the aircraft was levelling out. How we survived that dive I shall never know, the wings would have dropped off on a less sturdy plane. Our attackers had disappeared and now flying low over Berlin’s suburbs we could see houses and gardens quite clearly. It was time for taking stock of the damage and our chances of returning home. Jimmy Fenn the WOp had 20mm shell fragments in his legs but nothing serious: the port inner engine was out of action and a fuel pipe cut; the pilot’s control panel damaged and many instruments u/s with general damage in the fuselage and bomb aimer’s compartment. Our worst fear was that the escaping high octane fuel was awash right down the length of the fuselage and one spark would have finished us off.
Bomber Command Page 12