Bomber Command

by Martin Bowman

For the first time I experienced the flak, the searchlights, the fires, the bombs bursting on the ground and the Lanc shaking when the flak was close. I saw the brilliant colours of the target markers on the ground and experienced the long, long wait over the target while the bomb-aimer identified the target and gave his instructions to the pilot. I felt the great lift of the Lanc when the bombs were released and then the two minutes flying on straight and level for the camera to check where our bombs had gone. And finally to dive and turn away on a course for home. I had to wonder what this experienced crew thought of this new ‘sprog’ engineer on his first trip, the crew that I hadn’t even really met. It seemed like hours before we got away from the target.

  With bomber formations simultaneously over two cities about 300 miles apart, the German night fighters found it impossible to adequately protect both targets, and just nine Lancasters were lost on the Berlin operation but an effective Tame Boar operation mounted against the second force destroyed most of the 23 aircraft that failed to return. One of the losses was B-Bertie, a 218 Squadron Stirling flown by 21-year-old Pilot Officer Alan Hine from Kendall, Westmoreland. The aircraft encountered few problems until it reached Frankfurt, but were then picked out by many searchlights. Rather than risk other aircraft in the squadron, Hine turned south to Mannheim and they deposited their load as per instructions still being tailed by searchlights. After a very short while 30-year-old Sergeant Wilf Perry, air gunner from Lye, Stourbridge spotted six German fighters tailing the aircraft, but in the glare of the searchlights they could not pick out a single fighter coming from in front and below and were unable to train their guns on same. The fighter attacked and the pilot ordered the abandonment of the aircraft. Wilf Perry was heard to say ‘OK Skipper.’ The bomb aimer, Flying Officer Alwynne Powell from Llynpia, Glamorgan was near the bomb doors and he parachuted out, but for the rest of the crew it was too late. The Stirling crashed in the village of Bobstadt five miles north of Mannheim with the loss of Hine and Perry; 22-year-old Sergeant D I McCallwn, navigator from Huddersfield, Yorkshire; 26-year-old Sergeant J Robson WOP/AG from Felling, Gateshead; Sergeant F C White, air gunner from Portsmouth, Hampshire and Sergeant K Walshaw, flight engineer from Dewsbury, Yorkshire. Alwynne Powell was captured about 40 miles from the crash site six days later. He was held prisoner until June 1945 when repatriated. The bodies of the six crew men were laid out on the grass at side of road and were carried on a vehicle to the nearby cemetery where they were buried with a simple cross which read ‘Here Lies Six English Flyers’. Women from the local village laid flowers on the graves.36

  More than 2,500 tons of bombs were dropped in the raids on Berlin and Ludwigshafen. Over 300 buildings were destroyed in Mannheim and Ludwigshafen-on-Rhine. This raid marked the last major attack on Mannheim for fifteen months. At the de-briefing at Wickenby Brian Soper enjoyed a cigarette and a tot of rum. ‘It was like living again – but for how long?’ He would follow this trip with three more to Berlin, flying with his own pilot and crew.

  Leverkusen was bombed on the night of 19/20 November when bad weather on the continent prevented many night fighters from operating and only five bombers were lost. Conditions were little better when on Monday 22 November, 764 bombers, fifty of them Stirlings of 3 Group flying their last Main Force operation, set off for Berlin again. Crews were detailed to fly a straight course in and out. At Mildenhall the Amir Feisal and the Amir Khalid of Saudi Arabia watched the Lancaster crews on 15 and 622 Squadrons prepare for and return from the raid on Berlin. The first Path Finders arrived over the ‘Big City’ just before 20.00 to find the city covered by ten-tenths cloud. The forecast had been for clear conditions over the home airfields, broken to medium-level cloud over Berlin and low cloud or fog over much of the rest of Germany. Three of the five Lancasters equipped with the new 3cm H2S Mk.III sets had to turn back after their equipment failed but the two other aircraft’s sets showed a clear outline and the blind markers accurately dropped four red TIs at the AP slightly to the east of the centre of the capital. Despite the risk of collisions the rate of aircraft over the target was increased to 34 a minute. More than 2,000 tons of blast bombs and approximately 150,000 incendiaries were dropped on Berlin in barely 35 minutes. Air crews reported large fires spread through the city and that they lit the sky a fiery red. Approximately 20 minutes after the first bomb was released, there was a gigantic explosion whose effects were clearly visible from an altitude of over 21,000 feet. Hundreds of air crews confirmed that they had never seen such a severe explosion or felt such a shock wave, on any previous operation. The explosion was the huge Neuköln gasworks blowing up. One of the pilots gave this account:

  The anti-aircraft started firing about 180 miles outside Berlin, so that we had to fly for a total of 360 miles through a more or less dense barrage, which was hard on the nerves. We saw the explosion too; it was almost unimaginable. Suddenly a blazing light shot up and the horizon turned fiery red. The coloured flares from the pathfinders showed us our way as clearly as we could wish. We had no problems as we released more than 50 two-ton bombs on the city centre, which the flares had divided into sectors. Only one of our bombs hit outside the area marked by the flares.

  Returning crews could only estimate that the marking and bombing were believed to be accurate. In fact this was the most effective raid on the ‘Big City’ of the war. A vast area of destruction stretched across the capital caused mainly by firestorms as a result of the dry weather conditions. Tuesday night leading into Wednesday, the west part of Berlin suffered more than in all the previous raids. On Wednesday afternoon, Mosquitoes flew over the capital and reported having observed over 200 giant conflagrations. The Daily Mail reported: ‘It has entered the realm of possibility that Berlin may be approaching the end of its days as a capital city, due to the fearful rain of bombs that fell on it Monday night. The RAF has devised means to level targets the size of Berlin. The raid was by far the heaviest that that city has ever experienced.’

  Reich Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph Goebbels’ wrote in his diary:

  Early in the morning I am already at work. Straight away Schaub gives me a report on the situation in Berlin, which is very sad. It is inexplicable how the British were able to destroy so much of the capital in one air raid. The Wilhelmsplatz is truly the picture of desolation. It is still blazing from end to end. The Propaganda Ministry has mainly been spared . . . Devastation is again appalling in the government section as well as in the western and northern suburbs . . . The State Playhouse and the Reichstag are ablaze . . . Hell itself seems to have broken loose over us . . .

  Nachtjagd largely remained grounded due to adverse weather conditions and there were no diversions but twenty-six aircraft failed to return. Eleven of these were Lancasters, ten were Halifaxes and the other five were Stirlings on their swansong. It took Stirling losses since August to 109 aircraft in raids on Germany. Unable to achieve the altitude performance which the Halifax and Lancaster could attain, Stirlings never again flew to Germany.37

  Twelve hours later the RAF bombers returned to Berlin. Goebbels’ next diary entry was:

  Now and then I am able to snatch half an hour’s sleep; but then I am called back to work. Large formations of British aircraft are again set on an obstinate course for Berlin . . . The raid begins shortly after the alarm siren. This time there are more blast bombs than incendiaries. Once again it is a first-class grand assault . . . Mines and explosive bombs hail down incessantly on the government district. One after another the most important buildings start to burn. After the raid when I take a look at the Wilhelmsplatz, I find that the ghastly impression of the previous evening has grown even worse. I pass on into the Propaganda Ministry. The offices are burning in two places on the side of the Wilhelmsplatz.

  The height of the smoke cloud over Berlin from eleven major fires still burning from the previous night was almost 19,000 feet high when 383 bombers – 365 Lancasters, ten Halifaxes and eight Mosquitoes – again made the long haul to the ‘Big City’
. This time the attack concentrated mainly on the western part of the capital with its three large rail installations: Westend, Bahn Zoo and Bahnhof Charlottenburg. The night was clear and there were only a few clouds to hinder visibility, so that operational conditions were far more favourable to the German air defence than on the previous night. The bombing force again used the same direct route and the Jägerleitoffizier (JLO, or GCI-controller) made an early identification of Berlin as the probable target. Bomber crews noticed that flak over the target, which was again cloud-covered, was ‘unusually restrained’ and the Path Finders carried out sky-marking but many of the Main Force crews aimed their bombs through the cloud at the glow of the fires burning from the previous night.

  Brian Soper recalled:

  This raid was very similar to the previous one, although both ground and sky markers were used as there was a lot of cloud at lower levels. These took the form of flares, red, green, or yellow, the colours specified at the briefing, dropped by pathfinder Lancs or Mosquitoes. Sky markers called Wanganui flares were dropped by parachutes, with one colour dripping from the other. To bomb on these, the bomb-aimer would need to be sure of approaching from the right direction; height and wind speed calculations were important. These markers were only used when the ground markers could not easily be seen and were probably not too accurate.

  This time, a handful of experienced Nachtjäger braved the elements. Twelve Tame Boar crews shot down 13 of the 20 heavy bombers that were lost. Further losses were avoided by ‘spoof’ fighter flares dropped by Mosquitoes north of the bomber stream, which caused some diversion of the night fighter effort and fake Corona instructions ordering the German pilots to land because of fog at their bases. When the Nachtjagd introduced female commentators to give the ‘running commentary’ to the fighters to beat the Corona interference this was swiftly countered by a female voice from England. Later the transmission of three or four superimposed German voices would be used. Eventually, instead of attempting to imitate the German commentators, British operators would set out to simply irritate them by blocking the air waves by reading lengthy passages from the writings of Goethe or the speeches of Hitler. Gradually the Germans would overcome the worst effects of Corona by increasing the frequency spread used and making rapid changes of frequency during operations but in the meantime Corona caused great confusion and on occasion exchanges between night fighter pilots and the real controllers reached explosive levels. From a distance of 30 miles the air crews could see the fires that had continued to smoulder since Monday. Finally in the fire-glow over Berlin they were able to observe many details of the destroyed city districts. The whole complex around the Wilhelmstrasse, the Brandenburg Gate area and the Tauentzienstrasse, Potsdam Square, the Anhalter Strasse and many other building-lined streets were completely destroyed. Berliners once again began clearing away the debris and devastation as fire crews tried to extinguish the blazing fires. Goebbels wrote that this was ‘one of the worst nights of his entire life.’ Although the flames were still soaring skywards he hoped that Berliners would overcome the worst difficulties by noon and get ready for the next night. ‘It would be wonderful,’ he added ‘if we had one night’s rest.’

  Goebbels’ got his wish. On the night of 25/26 November 236 Halifaxes and 26 Lancasters attacked Frankfurt. Again, there were no major diversions and the JLO did not at first know whether Mannheim or Frankfurt was the real objective but eventually, he chose Frankfurt. Flak was restricted to 15,000 feet. Cloud covered the target area and the bombing appeared to be scattered. Eleven Halifaxes including three on 102 Squadron at Pocklington and W-William, a Lancaster on 97 Squadron flown by Flight Lieutenant Carlos Manuel Brown cdeG RCAF failed to return. The American Skipper and his crew, including Pilot Officer Thomas Watson, who always carried his pet spaniel on ops, all died on the aircraft, which crashed at Brandau.

  Another American was lost when B-Baker flown by Pilot Officer Stephen John Troake, one of two Halifaxes on 76 Squadron that were lost, failed to return to Holme on Spalding Moor. Pilot Officer Reg Fayers the navigator supposed that he had been fighting in the Battle of the Ruhr but to him it hadn’t felt like that:

  It didn’t seem like fighting to climb aboard an aircraft with your friends and climb to a space where the sunset seemed infinite; to sit in a small space and on the engine-noise background hear the everyday commonplaces spoken to you while you juggled with figures and lines to find God’s intentions in the winds; to sit for a few hours at 20,000 feet working hard so that when Tom Paton the bomb aimer eventually said ‘Bombs gone, photograph taken. OK Steve, fly away,’ it didn’t seem anything more than part of the job and a fresh course to be steered, this time for home.

  To Fayers the air war seemed ‘aloof and impersonal’. He had no time to think of hell happening below ‘to a set of people who were the same as you except that their thinking had gone a bit haywire.’

  It was a fair assumption that when Tom dropped the bombs, women and boys and girls were killed and cathedrals damaged. It must have been so. Were it more personal, I should be more regretting, I suppose. But sitting up there with my charts and pencils I did not see a thing. I never looked out. As far as humanity was concerned, I could not definitely regret that I had helped to kill German people. The only thought that came from the outside was when occasionally Gillie, the mid-upper gunner, said, ‘Turn to starboard, go . . .’ It might mean that out there in the darkness which you could not even see, somewhere there was a night fighter with a German boy in it; and he might kill you. When Gillie or Reuben Orr the rear gunner, said ‘Turn to starboard, go . . .’ that quick weakening thought came in – ‘May be this is It.’ But you never could believe it. It didn’t seem possible that what was so orderly and efficient a machine one second could become, within the next minute, a falling, killing thing with us throwing ourselves from it into a startling world of surprised chaos. But it could happen.

  It did. B-Baker crashed south of Heidelberg.

  Reg Fayers had written a letter to his wife Phyl that summer, which he never posted, saying that they had more out of living than most people could reasonably expect and that if they had to stop sharing those wonderful things, perhaps it was better for it to end when their love was so strong and firm and young and ‘while they both had their own teeth.’ He had added that if he had to go to heaven, ‘I’d rather go attractively and still be able to play soccer. Love me till then, darling, Toujours a vous.’ Reg Fayers, Tom Paton and Staff Sergeant P W Flewell the mid-upper gunner bailed out and they were captured. Their Skipper and Sergeants Lew Barnes and P I Weeks were killed.

  G-George, the other missing Halifax on 76 Squadron, was flown by 21-year-old Lieutenant Knut Lindaas, a charming Norwegian, one of three on the Squadron who were known as ‘Pip’, ‘Squeak’ and ‘Wilfred’ after the cartoon characters. On the way home the cloud had thickened up and the Halifax began to ice up. Within minutes ‘Squeak’ Lindaas had lost control. Several of his crew bailed out but he refused a parachute from the flight engineer before he too bailed out with the 24-year-old rear gunner, Sergeant Fred Beadle. Lindaas preferred to die in the aircraft. He had received news that his brother had already been shot by the Gestapo and he knew that his days were numbered if he landed alive in Germany. The Norwegian flyers never cared of the economic importance of a target; they just wanted to know how many Germans per acre . . .38

  Harold Wakefield the flight engineer on 51 Squadron who ‘always had his parachute handy’ had a lucky escape returning from Frankfurt. He wrote about it to his parents:

  We took off at 11.30pm for Frankfurt. We flew down England and turned towards the coast at Reading. As we neared the coast before we knew what had happened, another Halifax sort of side-slipped across the top of us. There was a terrific crunching as it hit us. Johnny kept control all the time but it was very hard to fly and we were losing height. Half the tail-plane, one rudder and two feet of the port wing were ripped off; one of the props was shattered and the three remaining engines
had been knocked about a bit and at any minute we expected the rest of the tail-plane to fall off. But we held on while we crossed the coast and jettisoned our bomb in the sea. Then we turned back over land again and Johnny gave orders to ‘abandon aircraft’. He said he’d stay a bit and see if he could land it by himself, but if necessary he’d bail out himself. So we clipped on our ’chutes and said a little prayer (at least I did) and bailed out one after another. We were all a bit nervous, but I was pretty excited myself. Anyway I went out head first and was battered and banged about by the slipstream. I turned several somersaults and dropped several hundred feet. Then there was a colossal jerk as if I’d been torn in half and I knew my ’chute had opened OK. I jumped at 10,000 feet but there was no wind hardly and I drifted down, it was a lovely sensation floating down, but it only took me about seven minutes before I hit the ground with a bit of a thud, my knees buckled up and I landed on my bum. On the way down I crashed through a tree but luckily didn’t get stuck although I did get a slight scratch across my cheek. I landed in a field. So I rolled my ’chute up and slung it over my shoulder and started walking over fields and hedges until I came to a road, after about 2 hours walking I came to a small village. I went to the house and knocked them up (by this time it was 3 o’clock Friday morning as I bailed out about 1 o’clock). They took me in (it was a young man and his wife) and were very good. They wanted to give me a bath, whisky etc. But I had a cup of tea. They rang the nearest drome and someone was sent immediately in a car to pick me up.

  By 26 November ‘Nick’ Knilans on 619 Squadron was no longer a Pilot Officer, having been promoted to Lieutenant USAAF. That night he would pilot a Lancaster on the raid on Berlin A rear gunner who had already flown a tour replaced Jerry Jackson who had been killed over Kassel in October but he failed to show up to fly the NFT that afternoon. He did however show up in time for the take off. The Berlin force totalled over 440 Lancasters and seven Mosquitoes, the procession taking 45 minutes to cross the coast. Another 157 Halifaxes and 21 Lancasters flew a diversion on Stuttgart. Both forces flew a common route over Northern France and nearing Frankfurt they split. At first the JLOs thought that Frankfurt was the intended target. The difficult weather conditions had resulted in only the most experienced German crews being ordered to take off and 84 fighters engaged the RAF formations. I JD downed most of the 27 bombers that were shot down on the raid on the ‘Big City’ while from the smaller force seven Halifaxes were shot down by flak and fighters and a Halifax crashed on take-off at the start of the operation. Just two German night fighter aircraft were lost.