During our three weeks in Rechlin we flew some sorties over Berlin. Kurt and I had a small room in flying control at our disposal. During reported attacks we waited there for possible orders. One evening it looked as if Berlin might be the target for the bomber stream. Prinz Wittgenstein had already reported our imminent takeoff. We climbed on a south-easterly course in the direction of Berlin. The distance Rechlin–Berlin is about 100 kilometres. The speaker in the so-called Reichsjägerwelle (Reich fighter frequency) gave a running commentary of position, course and height of the enemy bombers. Their code word was Dicke Autos (‘Fat Cars’). This kept all the airborne fighters constantly informed. Meanwhile Berlin had been recognized as being the target and the Reichsjägerwelle gave the order: ‘Everything to Bär (Bear), everything to Bär!’ Meanwhile we had reached the height of the bombers at about 7,000 metres. We entered the bomber stream on a south-easterly course. The radar was switched on and we observed the air space around us as far as the visibility allowed.
I soon had my first target on my screen. I passed the required changes of course to the pilot on the intercom. We were closing in on our target. ‘Straight ahead; a little higher!’ Very quickly we had reached the heavily laden four-engined one. It was, as nearly always, a Lancaster. Prinz Wittgenstein set it on fire with a single burst from the Schräge Musik cannon and the enemy went down.
Ahead of us the first beams of the searchlights were searching the night sky. The fire of the flak defences intensified and as a signal for the attack the British Path Finders dropped target indicators for the approaching bombers. And again I had a target on my screen. The distance to the enemy bomber decreased quickly. By this difference in speed alone we could see that it must be an enemy bomber. But suddenly the closing speed became very high indeed and I could only call out on the intercom: ‘Down, down, the machine is coming straight at us!’ A moment later a shadow passed above us in the opposite direction. We just felt the slipstream and the aircraft, probably another Lancaster, had disappeared into the night. The three of us sat rigid in our seats and we only relaxed when Kurt said, ‘That was close!’ Once more we had been lucky.
Now for the next target. The approach was almost complete and both the pilot and engineer could recognize the aircraft. Then suddenly the starboard engine began to shake, the propeller revolutions quickly decreased and finally stopped completely. Prinz Wittgenstein pushed the nose down to maintain speed, feathered the propeller and adjusted the rudder trim to counteract the thrust of the remaining engine. By the time Wittgenstein had done all this, the Lancaster had disappeared into the darkness. We might have had further successes but with only one engine we now had only one aim: back to Rechlin. I obtained a course to steer from the D/F station. The port engine ran smoothly and we flew slowly losing height towards Rechlin. I told the D/F station that we had lost one engine and that we would have to try a single-engined landing. Every airman knows about the dangers and difficulties of such a landing at night. One should really have been terribly frightened. But that doesn’t help in such situations at all. Although it wasn’t really allowed, Prinz Wittgenstein wanted to do a normal landing with extended undercarriage. That meant that if it shouldn’t work out, an overshoot on only one engine would not be possible and both aircraft and crew would almost certainly be lost. But Prinz Wittgenstein, as pilot and commander of our machine, was in command; he had the power to make the final decision. The airfield fired off signal rockets to aid our orientation, which we called Radieschen (radishes). When we had reached the airfield we first flew past it and then made a wide circuit towards the approach path. The Prinz had to do this, as we could only turn towards the running engine. A turn into the stopped engine could easily have caused a crash. We commenced our approach on a VHF beam, a very accurate approach aid at that time. The power of the running engine had to be reduced and the rudder trim adjusted at the same time. The landing was perfect. As the machine rumbled over the runway we felt a great relief. We praised our pilot very highly of course and Kurt and I thought that we had earned some relaxation.
After a few days the engine had been changed and our machine was again ready for action. Prinz Wittgenstein was impatient again. At the next approach of enemy bombers – Berlin was the target again – we were once more in the air. The weather was good for a change. There was a slight layer of haze at medium altitude, above that the sky was clear. I tuned in to the Reichsjägerwelle and so we were kept well informed about the general situation. Everything was pointing to another attack on the Reich capital. At this time large parts of Berlin had been heavily damaged. Entire streets were in ruins. It was an unimaginable sight. I had once experienced a night attack on the city from the ground. I was in an underground station with many others, the earth shook with each explosions, women and children screamed and smoke billowed through the place. Anyone who did not feel fear and horror would have had a heart of stone.
Back to our operation; we had meanwhile reached the altitude of the bomber stream and entered, like the Lancasters, the flak barrage over the city. British Path Finders – we called them ‘Master of Ceremonies’ – had already dropped markers. The scene over the city was almost impossible to describe. The searchlights illuminated the haze layer over the city, making it look like an illuminated frosted glass screen, above which the sky was very light. One could make out the approaching bombers as if it were daylight. It was a unique sight.
Prinz Wittgenstein put the aircraft into a slight bank. At this moment we did not know where to make a start. But the decision was suddenly taken from us, as tracer flew past our machine. Wittgenstein put the machine into a steep turn and dived. As we went downwards I could see the Lancaster flying obliquely above us and its mid-upper-gunner who was firing at us with his twin guns. Fortunately his aim had not been very good. We had got a few hits but the engines kept running and the crew was unhurt. We went off to one side into the dark, keeping the Lancaster just in sight.
We now continued parallel to the bomber for a while. The darker it got around us, the closer we moved towards the enemy machine. As the light from the searchlights decreased and the fires which the attack of the enemy had started lay behind us, we were well closed up to the bomber. The Lancaster was now flying above us, suspecting nothing. Perhaps the crew was relieved to have survived the attack and to be on their way home. But we, intent on the hunt, sat in our cockpit with our eyes staring upward, hoping that we had not been detected.
Prinz Wittgenstein placed our Ju still closer to the huge shadow above us, took careful aim and fired with the Schräge Musik. The tracer of the 2cm shells bored into the wing between the engines and set the fuel tanks on fire. We swung immediately to one side and watched the burning Lancaster, which continued on its course for quite a while. Whether the crew had been able to bail out we could not tell. They had certainly had enough time. The bomber exploded in a bright flash and fell disintegrating to earth. I got good contact with our D/F station right away. We flew without any problems to Rechlin and landed there.22
Prinz Wittgenstein was given a new task in December 1943. We were transferred with our machine to Erprobungsstelle (E-Stelle) Rechlin on the Mürlitzsee, where a new night fighter experimental unit was to be established. This came as a surprise for Unteroffizier Matzuleit our flight engineer and me. Within a few hours we were torn from the circle of our comrades. In Rechlin we knew no-one and frequently sat unhappily around. Most of the time, Prinz Wittgenstein was away at meetings at the Air Ministry in Berlin. Our job was to keep the machine in constant readiness. There was no night fighter unit stationed at Rechlin. It often took me hours to obtain the operational data for radio and navigation by telephone. For accommodation we had railway carriages with sleeping facilities.
With his score standing at 68 victories, 27-year-old Major Wittgenstein became Kommodore of NJG2 on Saturday 1 January 1944. That same night, the Prinz was airborne again in his Ju 88C-6 equipped with SN-2 radar and Schräge Musik. In England one of the 421 Lancaster crews that w
as ‘on’ that night was Flying Officer James ‘Gil’ Bryson’s ‘T squared’ on 550 Squadron. Bryson had joined the squadron on its formation at Waltham, Grimsby on 25 November 1943, having transferred from 12 Squadron at Wickenby six miles from Market Rasen in Lincolnshire where he and his crew had begun operations on 3 September. Their last two trips on 550 Squadron had been to the ‘Big City’ before the Main Force squadrons received two days of rest. Sergeant Jim Donnan the WOp on Bryson’s crew recalls the events of the New Year’s Day raid that evening:
We were engaged in routine pre-operational checks and testing of our equipment prior to the main briefing, which commenced in a tense atmosphere. When the curtain was drawn aside exposing the operational map, the target was Berlin for the third consecutive time, only this time our route to the ‘Big City’ was almost directly from the Dutch coast across an area which was becoming increasingly dangerous because of night fighter activity. The original take-off time was planned for mid-evening but deteriorating weather conditions delayed our take-off for several hours.23 It was therefore difficult to relax during this period.
As New Year’s Day was drawing to a close we were preparing for take-off and at 14 minutes past midnight we were airborne and on our way at last. The sky was dark and overcast as we flew through layers of broken cloud, climbing to our operational height, heading east over the North Sea. As we approached the Dutch coast we could see that the anti-aircraft defences were very active and we became alert to the dangers ahead. Flying over Germany, occasional bursts of flak and flashes lit up the thick, unbroken cloud along the route. While searching the night fighter waveband I was aware of considerable activity by the German control. We found it necessary to keep a sharp look out even though our trip had been uneventful so far. Our navigator Sergeant Thomas ‘Rocky’ Roxby called for a slight change in course for the final leg to Berlin as we reached a position between Hannover and Bremen. It was almost immediately afterwards that a series of thuds vibrated through the floor and the aircraft seemed to bank away to starboard. I leapt up from my seat to the astrodome where I could see the starboard engines were on fire. As I switched over from radio to intercom, I saw that a fire had started under the navigator’s table on the floor just behind the pilot. It was soon burning fiercely. The pilot gave the order to abandon the aircraft. I clipped on my parachute and as I moved forward it was found that the front escape hatch would not open. The engineer joined the bomb aimer in trying to release it. As I stood behind the navigator waiting to exit, the rear gunner said that he was having trouble with the rear turret. I then signalled that I would go to the rear exit. The navigator was standing beside the pilot ready to exit as I scrambled over the main spar and along the fuselage to the rear door, losing my shoes on the way. When I got there, the mid-upper gunner was ready to leave and the rear gunner was out of his turret and preparing to come forward. I then jettisoned the rear door as the flames from the starboard wing streamed past, licking the tail plane. Grasping the release handle on my parachute I prepared to jump but I must have lost consciousness, as I have no recollection of what happened next or how I left the plane. When I regained consciousness my parachute was already open and I was floating in pitch darkness; very cold and my feet were freezing. I seemed to be a long time coming down but as I descended through the clouds, dark shadows appeared and I landed on soft ground in an open space. Gathering up my parachute, I dashed over to a clump of trees where I sat on the ground shivering and wondering how I could avoid capture.24
Twenty-nine Lancasters were lost over Berlin.25 A-Apple flown by Wing Commander ‘Jock’ Abercromby DFC* who had recently moved to command 83 Squadron in 8 Group after his ops on 619 Squadron, which included flying Ed Murrow to Berlin the previous December, was attacked on the way to the target. It may have been the Scot’s order banning weaving or banking gently over enemy territory and instead flying straight and level at all times that resulted in an unseen night fighter shooting them down. A-Apple exploded, killing everyone except Sergeant L H Lewis, who was thrown clear.
At Spilsby at the southern end of the Lincolnshire Wolds two Lancasters on 207 Squadron failed to return. L-London and the crew were lost without trace. There were no survivors on T-Tommy flown by 1st Lieutenant Frank B Solomon USAAF, which included fellow American, Flying Officer Willis A DeBardeleben USAAF. Two ABC-equipped aircraft on 101 Squadron at Ludford Magna also failed to return. Z-Zebra and crew skippered by Squadron Leader Ian Robertson DFC were lost without trace, seven of them being commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial and Technical Sergeant Ereil Jones USAAF, the rear gunner, perpetuated on the Wall of the Missing at Madingley Cemetery just outside Cambridge. V-Victor flown by Pilot Officer D J Bell went down in Belgium. The pilot and two crew members, one of whom was 1st Lieutenant M H Albert USAAF, were taken prisoner and Sergeant H W Bailey evaded capture. Sergeant George C Connon the Special Operator and Flying Officer, Frank Joseph Zubic RCAF, the 18-year-old mid-upper gunner and the two other crew members who died were laid to rest in Gosselies Communal Cemetery. At Warboys 156 Squadron lost four Lancasters and all 28 crew members.
It snowed on Sunday 2 January. Despite most crews having just returned from an 8-hour round trip to the Big City, to their amazement they were ‘on’ again that night. Fatigue mixed with anger caused severe rumblings and ructions at briefings on many stations in Bomber Command. And there were to be no diversions. A long, evasive route was originally planned but this was changed to an almost straight in, straight out route with just a small ‘dog leg’ at the end of it to allow the bombers to fly into Berlin from the north-west, to take advantage of a strong following wind from that direction.26 So much for Harris’s ‘old lags’! However, at some airfields getting a requisite number of aircraft available proved impossible. At Waddington for instance only eight Lancasters on 467 Squadron were on the Battle Order. One was piloted by Pilot Officer Alec Riley who was described as ‘a pukka RAAF member having been employed as clerk of stores at Richmond, NSW before the war’.
It was another midnight take-off and runways were cleared of snow to allow 383 Lancasters, Mosquitoes and Halifaxes to get off. T-Tommy, a Lancaster on 460 Squadron crashed near Binbrook village six minutes after take-off, killing all the crew. The weather was foul throughout and cloud contained icing and static electricity up to 28,000 feet but clearer conditions were expected at the target where most of the 26 bombers that were lost – ten of them Path Finder aircraft – were shot down. Losses at Warboys rose to nine aircraft in two nights when five more Lancasters on 156 Squadron failed to return. T-Tommy flown by Flying Officer Charles Gordon Cairns DFM crashed at Riesdorf on what was the pilot’s 47th sortie. All seven crew including Technical Sergeant Jack E Haywood USAAF died. V-Victor was lost without trace while J-Johnny was presumed to have crashed in the target area. O-Orange also disappeared with all seven crew. Near Bremen C-Charlie flown by Sergeant Alan Douglas Barnes was attacked from the port quarter by a night fighter. The Lancaster entered into a steep dive and was partially abandoned by four of the crew, who were captured and taken into captivity. Barnes and two of his crew, including 17-year-old Sergeant Ronald Victor Hillman, died.27
On the way out over Holland Lancaster E-Easy on 432 ‘Leaside’ Squadron at East Moor flown by Pilot Officer Tom Spink was attacked head-on and considerably damaged by a night fighter. Spink and his navigator were each awarded the DFC. Shortly after dropping the bomb load, just after it turned for home U-Uncle on ‘Leaside’ Squadron, flown by 22-year-old Pilot Officer J A ‘Jim’ McIntosh, was attacked by a night fighter. McIntosh, born and raised in Revelstoke, British Columbia had been a locomotive fireman with the Canadian Pacific Railway before joining up. His crew were all Canadians. McIntosh recalled:
The rear gunner, Sergeant Leo Bandle, spotted a Bf 110. The enemy and my two gunners opened fire at the same instant. Cannon shells hit our aircraft like sledge hammers. Bandle and Andrew de Dauw my mid-upper gunner scored hits on the 110’s port engine and cockpit and the fighter went down, burni
ng fiercely. All this happened within five seconds. Meanwhile my control column had been slammed forward (the elevator had been hit), putting the aircraft into a near-vertical dive. By putting both feet on the instrument panel, one arm around the control column and the other hand on the elevator trim, then hauling back with every ounce of strength while trimming fully nose up, I managed to pull out of the dive at about 10,000 feet (13,000 feet below bombing height). My compasses were unserviceable, the rudder controls had jammed and I could get very little response from the elevators. I still had to wrap both arms around the control column to maintain height.
We were now far behind the rest of the bombers and our only hope was to stay in the cloud-tops and take our chances with the severe icing we were encountering. Fighter flares kept dropping all around us and the flak positions en route were bursting their stuff at our height but the fighters couldn’t see us in that cloud. Alex Small my navigator, who was from Morris, Manitoba, took astro fixes and kept us away as much as possible from defended areas. We had been losing a lot of fuel from the starboard inner tank but enough remained to take us to Woodbridge. About seventy miles out to sea I let down through cloud, experiencing severe icing and then I broke through. The aircraft was now becoming very sluggish and only with difficulty was I able to hold height. I detailed the crew to throw out all our unnecessary equipment and to chop out everything they could. This considerably lightened the aircraft and made it easier to control. I then ordered the crew to stand by for ditching, just in case. The navigator headed me straight for Woodbridge on Gee. I used all the runway and felt the kite touch down on our port wheel. It rolled along until the speed dropped to about 30 mph and then I settled down more on the side of the starboard wheel, did half a ground-loop and stopped. I shut down the engines, got out and took a look. Both starboard engine nacelles were gone; the hydraulics were smashed and twisted; two large tears were in the starboard wing near the dinghy stowage: the dinghy was hanging out; the starboard fuel jettison sac was hanging out; the tail-plane was riddled with cannon and gun fire; the fuselage had five cannon holes through it (three of the shells had burst inside, near the navigator); there were two cannon holes in the rear turret (one of these shells had whistled almost the entire length of the fuselage before exploding); there were hundreds of holes of all sizes in the kite; every prop blade had at least one hole in it, one being split down the middle; the starboard outer oil tank was riddled and the starboard tyre was blown clean off. But nobody was injured. It had been a good trip until we were attacked by the fighter.
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