It was a dark night, with cloud above us and cloud below. One felt very lonely in a world of one’s own with a population of only seven, each with a job to do and each dependent upon the other doing his job and doing it right if all were to survive. But one knew that one was with the best and most reliable chaps in the world.
So the trip went on with no real incident. The night was clear and moonlit and the mountains below looked beautiful and even peaceful. Little could we guess what a menace they would be upon our return. My crew, along with three others were to fly over the target five minutes before the main force and find the wind’s speed and direction, which I had then to radio back to ensure accurate bombing. This added considerably to the danger of the ‘Op’ for us, as it meant that the full force of Munich’s defence would be thrown at just four aircraft until the main force arrived. Anyhow, on to the target we ran and then all hell burst loose. In the twenty trips I had done before never had I seen such a density of ack-ack fire. It seemed to cover the whole town. We were picked up with searchlights within seconds of entering the target area. Having to find the wind direction necessitated the Skipper keeping our plane on a straight and level course for a while, which meant that if we were to do our duty we could not take evasive action. We were right in the midst of the flak now and still we had not been hit. Then we got it, a direct hit on the outer starboard engine. It packed up like a light gone out and the whole of that side of the aircraft became a mass of holes from shrapnel. But we were lucky: not one of us was wounded. Just before the hit we had completed getting the wind, so I got cracking in sending it back. I repeated it three times to make sure of its reception and then informed the Skipper of what I had done. That was the main part of our job completed. We have only to run out and come in again with the main force to bomb – and then for home. That is going to be a difficult job, though, for I see on looking round again that one engine was finished altogether and another was only working on half power.
The Skipper came on to the intercom to the whole crew and asked if we were still all OK. We were, except for the bomb-aimer’s flying-suit that had been cut right across the chest by a piece of flying shrapnel: a lucky miss. The Skipper asked us if we feel that we would be justified in ditching the bombs and getting out as quickly as possible but we are all in full agreement that we have to run in again and finish the bombing. By this time the main force had arrived and we turned towards the target to commence our bombing run. Our height was now down to 8,000 feet and we could not climb any higher, though we could maintain this height with care. The flares had gone down and the target area was bathed in a brilliant white light. The markers were exploding and the Master Bomber had commenced his instructions over the wireless. He told us that the markers were not quite on target and that we must not bomb until he had been down to assess how we must aim in relation to the red marker-bombs.
We could see the Master Bomber’s Lancaster far below us and going lower all the time. The light anti-aircraft guns were all after him now but his words came through quite clear and confident: ‘Bomb in such and such an area away from the markers.’ Then we saw his plane burst into flames. It was going down afire from nose to tail but his instructions still came through. He passed all the information we needed and then: ‘Cheerio, lads, this is it,’ he called and dived to the ground in a mass of flames.8
By this time we had got quite a way over the target and our bomb-aimer informed the Skipper that if we were to bomb accurately we should have to run round again. So we turned round out of the target area and made a half-circle to get back on to a new bombing run. We managed this without further mishap and started on our third run over the target. I thought, ‘If we keep this up much longer, old Queenie will know Munich pretty well.’
Our bomb-aimer’s instructions to the pilot were now coming over the intercom: ‘Left, left, right, left, left, steady, steady, on aiming point, steady, bombs, gone.’ We felt the plane give its customary jump after being freed of the seven-ton weight of HE and we had started on the long flight home.
Visibility over the target was clear but the initial marking was scattered. A record was established when almost four tons of bombs per minute were dropped on the city in a 25-minute period between 22.30 and 22.55 hours. Heavy bombing developed over the southern and south-eastern districts of Munich but later stages of the raid fell up to 15 miles back along the approach route. Most of this inaccurate bombing was carried out by 5 Group Lancasters, which were again attempting their ‘time-and-distance’ bombing method independently of the Path Finder marking. The 5 Group crews were unable to pick out the Wurmsee Lake, which was the starting-point for their timed run.
D W Pye continues:
We ran into more flak but a few more holes wouldn’t make much difference for the plane was more like a sieve than anything else. There were still no wounded aboard and the rear and mid-upper gunners were getting a bit of their own back with shooting out searchlights. They finished a couple of them and that cheered us up considerably. We knew that we had a very tough job to get back. As we could only just maintain a height of 8,000 feet, it meant we had to work our way through the Alps, flying down the passes and keep a sharp look-out for any unexpected peaks. It was rather nerve-racking to see the mountains towering up above the plane but we got through, thanks to the brilliant flying of our Skipper. We carried on over France and now another big snag appeared. The engineer said that we had barely enough petrol to reach the coast of England. The problem was whether to land in France and try to avoid capture or to carry on and possibly have to ditch in the sea. We decided to keep going and to help us maintain height we threw out all the equipment we could manage without. This helped a little and we went limping on. One good thing about this trip was that so far we had not met up with any German fighter planes.
We were now over the sea, the tanks were very nearly empty and I tried to contact a wireless station to inform them of our plight and position. I got in touch with Manston and they told me we were to try to reach them, when they would have everything ready for a crash landing. We went in a direct line for Manston. We were all tense, praying and hoping for just an extra bit of luck to pull us through. The coast came into sight and then the lights of the ’drome. We got fastened down but when the Skipper checked the flaps and undercarriage he found that the latter would not come down. It must be badly damaged, so we informed Control that we would have to make a belly-landing. The Skipper asked us if we would like to bail out while he brought the aircraft in alone. We all told him that he had brought us all this way back and we would rather take our chance with him than otherwise.
We were now in line with the runway and losing height rapidly when the outer port engine started coughing and spluttering, then cut out altogether. The other engines followed suit in quick succession but now we were nearly on the deck. We went tearing up the runway and what happened next is difficult to describe because the plane did everything but loop-the-loop. There was a dreadful racket of tearing metal, banging and crashing but we eventually came to a stop. The wings had been torn from the fuselage, the tail we had left halfway down the runway and the nose of the plane was crumpled in like a broken egg-shell. But the thing that mattered really was that except for a goodly number of minor cuts, abrasions and bruises, we were quite all right. The fire-tender came up with the ambulance in close attendance and the next thing we knew was that we were in bed in hospital, quite fit but according to the MO, suffering from ‘severe strain and operational shock’. We were only ‘invalids’ for one night and then it was back to base.9
‘H Squared’ on 103 Squadron was also lucky to return after a Me 110 put over 400 bullet holes in the Lancaster just after leaving Munich, as Norman Bolt the mid upper gunner, recalls:
The rear turret caught eight holes, my turret caught twelve, the H2S was smashed and the rear gunner was knocked to hell. There was just a great hole, which I nearly fell down when I jumped out of the mid upper to put out a fire in the mid oxygen point. Miraculo
usly not one of the crew was injured, nor was a vital part re controls or petrol tanks hit. We returned to Elsham Woods and the Skipper said ‘I am going to put her down hard – I’ve got two greens (for the undercarriage) but I’m not sure’ – to which the rear gunner said ‘don’t you always put it down hard?’ We landed OK but when the tail wheel touched the deck all hell was let loose. When we left the Lanc at dispersal all the rear gunner got from the Skipper was ‘that will teach you to criticise my landings’!10
Seven bombers were shot down by night fighters on the raid and a 467 Squadron Lancaster ditched 25 miles off Beachy Head. All except one of the crew perished.
At Bardney on 3 October Ron Walkup’s crew on 9 Squadron sat around their table in the Briefing Room looking anxiously at the black screen which covered the wall map that held the answer to all their thoughts – the target. They had completed 11 operations together, the trips ranging all over Germany including Hamburg, Munich, Mannheim, Hannover and the Ruhr and so it could be said that they were settling down into an experienced team, which included Sergeant Angus Leslie the 23-year-old mid-upper-gunner and M C Wright the navigator. Even so, they still had to come face to face with the enemy. They were not to know at briefing on 3 October that this was to be the night. The Squadron Commander pulled the screen to one side to reveal that the target was the Henschel and Fiesler aircraft factories at Kassel, which made V-1 flying bombs. Just over 200 Lancaster crews were included in the force of 547 aircraft that were detailed and 9 Squadron was putting on 12 aircraft in the first wave. ‘The route,’ recalls Wright ‘would take us in north of the Ruhr and out to the south. There was nothing unusual about the target and as usual we were warned to expect a strong concentration of searchlights and anti-aircraft guns.’
At Woodhall Spa Pilot Officer ‘Nick’ Knilans’ crew on 619 Squadron were also ‘on’. Wing Commander ‘Jock’ Abercromby had told the American Skipper that Jerry Jackson was deeply troubled, but Knilans said nothing to his rear gunner. He did not need to know that his Skipper knew. As they assembled around the Lancaster before take-off they congratulated Jackson on the birth of his son. Knilans recalled:
He was a chain smoker anyway, so no one thought of his nervousness as anything out of the ordinary. He seemed less despondent as we took our stations. At 21.21 hours we were at 19,000 feet over Germany and turning for our target when ‘Monica’, the fighter-detection device, indicated an aircraft within 300 yards, which we believed to be another Lancaster – until a stream of tracer cannon and machine gun bullets came through the port wing and thudded into the fuselage. I dived to starboard and yelled down the intercom to Jerry; ‘Can you see him?’ There was no reply. Roy, the mid-upper gunner, noticed tracer entering the rear turret and causing an explosion and he was temporarily blinded by Perspex, which hit him in the eyes. We had to feather the port inner engine but we went on to bomb and stayed with the stream.
M C Wright continues:
Within a few minutes of time on target, Ron Walkup reported no sign of Path Finder activity, nor anything else for that matter. Suddenly we were lit up like the fairy on a Christmas tree and almost at once both gunners sighted a Focke Wulf 190 at about 700 yards passing from starboard to the port quarter. The rear gunner told the pilot to start the standard corkscrew manoeuvre, but the fighter hung-on and at 600 yards both our gunners opened fire. The FW 190 replied with cannon and his initial burst cleanly shot away the cupola of our mid-upper turret, also severing the electrical and oxygen supplies to both turrets: Angus Leslie was killed by a shell through the head. At 300 yards the fighter and Wally Mullet the rear gunner exchanged fire again and the latter could see his shots hit the fighter’s engine. It turned sharply to port, rolled over on its back and when alongside the Lancaster at about 100 yards it exploded. Pieces of fighter thudded against the side of the Lancaster; Wally lost consciousness through lack of oxygen. Ron Walkup decided to lose height until oxygen was no longer needed and in the end Wally suffered nothing more than mild frostbite as a result of the loss of electricity to his heated flying suit.
The H2S ‘blind marker’ aircraft overshot the aiming point at Kassel by some distance and the ‘visual markers’ were unable to correct the error because of thick haze which restricted visibility. Nachtjagd claimed 17 of the 24 heavies shot down for nine Tame Boar losses.
Pilot Officer Wilkie Wanless was the rear gunner on the crew of P-Peter, the 76 Squadron Halifax flown by Pilot Officer Arthur Thorp, briefed for Kassel where they flew the diversion, flying past Kassel and then turning and going back. Wanless, who was on his 24th operation, recalled:
After the turn coming back we got hit by a fighter. Nobody saw him. He came up underneath us with his upward firing cannons. He hit the starboard wing and he must have hit the fuselage too because he killed the mid-upper gunner. We were a ball of fire. Everyone got out except the mid-upper gunner [Sergeant John Thomas Zuidmulder] and the pilot. Why the pilot didn’t get out I have no idea. I spoke to Thorp from the rear turret. I said, ‘this is the rear gunner – I’m going out; everyone else has gone.’ I pulled my chute in, buckled it on and flipped out backwards. I was always very apprehensive about getting run into by another aircraft in the stream, so I did a delayed drop, landed in a potato patch, undid my chute, buried it under some potato tops, took off my sheepskin trousers. I’d taken my helmet off in the aircraft; otherwise you would break your neck if you bailed out with it on. It was about 9 o’clock at night. I walked out to what I thought had been a river but it was an Autobahn. I walked out on to the highway and trundled along until I became absolutely exhausted when the nervous reaction set in. I crawled into some brush and went to sleep. I thought I’d get to Switzerland. We had escape kits and a beautiful silk map so I knew where I was. I was a mess. I’d fallen in a few ditches. The second night I hid and the third day I was in a ditch by a farmer’s field. He came to look at his hay crop and saw me there. I pretended I was French with my schoolboy language. He just shrugged and walked away. Within a short time three men arrived and arrested me, marched me into the town hall. The Gestapo called in an old man who had been in England in the First World War to interpret. They phoned Berlin. When they phoned Berlin they said ‘Vilhelm Alexander Vilkie Vanless’. I kept saying, ‘No, no, no – William Alexander Wilkie Wanless.’ They locked me up in the city jail and during the night a couple of Luftwaffe guys arrived in a Black Maria and took me to the air base. They assigned me an armed guard and he took me by train to Frankfurt and the interrogation centre. I was amazed to look up in Frankfurt station and see all the glass. I thought we would have broken it all by then. An elderly German went by and saw ‘Canada’ on my shoulder. He looked terribly disturbed and started screaming. It was a mob scene in seconds and my escort had to get his Luger out. He grabbed me by the arm and said ‘run’ and we just ran down the platform as the train was coming in. You couldn’t hold it against anybody. The RAF had been there a night or two before; the Americans had been there a day or two before. You could feel for them.
On the way to the target Flight Sergeant Gordon G Wright RCAF, bomb aimer on Stirling G-George on 15 Squadron at Mildenhall, flown by Flight Sergeant A V Wood, made his way back to relieve the wireless operator of the task of throwing out bundles of Window. He began the job there on the floor of the Stirling just in front of the main spar. After only a few minutes of ejecting the Window Wright heard Flight Sergeant W T E ‘Bill’ Highland RAAF the rear gunner tell the pilot, ‘Go port.’ The gunner had spotted a Bf 110 closing quickly and the pilot immediately began the diving manoeuvre to port. Just as he did so, Highland began firing at the fighter and at almost the same instant Oberleutnant Fritz Lau of III./NJG1, who was their attacker, opened fire. The former Lufthansa airline pilot raked the Stirling with cannon shells from tail to cockpit. Intercom communication with both Highland and Sergeant Rex Blanchard the mid-upper gunner was then lost, as the intercom system was damaged. The aircraft’s hydraulics was also knocked out and in a few moments a large fire broke out in
the centre of the fuselage.
Though seriously wounded in the right hip, Sergeant J R Arrowsmith the wireless operator came forward at this point. The navigator, Flight Sergeant J S Curtis RNZAF had left his table to confer with the pilot about their position. He then returned to his table to try and recover his maps which were being blown around in the fuselage due to a large hole that had been blasted just above his position. Had he been sitting there during the fighter attack he would almost certainly have been killed instantly. Now the dazed and injured wireless operator reached the navigator and asked him what they were going to do. Gordon Wright joined them by stepping carefully over the body of Sergeant Leslie Graham the flight engineer, who had been killed in the attack. The pilot, who was struggling to keep the crippled bomber stabilized, then gave the order, ‘Abandon aircraft.’
Wright responded quickly, grabbing the pilot’s parachute from behind his seat and fastening it onto his skipper. He then followed Arrowsmith to the front escape hatch. When Wright reached the hatch he found it had slammed shut again. Now the Stirling, in its death throes, was entering a slow spiral, pinning the navigator alternately to the floor or the ceiling and frustrating his attempts to leave the plane. Finally, Wright managed to open the hatch again and, after contacting the pilot, he and the wireless operator and the navigator, bailed out. With the Stirling now down to less than 3,000 feet, the pilot was able to switch on the auto-pilot, leave his seat and make his way forward to the escape hatch only to find that once again it had slammed shut. The Stirling continued to spiral downward. The centre section and right wing were now burning furiously and the 6,000lb load of incendiaries remained in the bomb bay. The disabled hydraulic system meant that the bomb doors could not be opened and the crew had been unable to get rid of the bomb load. G-George fell through a height of 1,500 feet when Wood at last got to the escape hatch and somehow re-opened it. He left the aircraft with no time to spare. The Stirling crashed at Haste in the northern suburbs of Osnabrück.
Bomber Command Page 18