Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
On 6 December ninety-three light bombers prepared to take off to attack the Philips works. At Marham the briefings were carried out by Wing Commander Hughie Edwards
VC DFC
accompanied as usual by his white bulldog ‘Sallie’. If she was late Edwards would halt proceedings until she had settled down!
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Edwards and Flight Lieutenant Charles Patterson, who had a black spaniel by the name of ‘Jamie’, often took their pet dogs aloft in a Mosquito during practice flights. Patterson, who had flown a tour on Blenheims in 114 Squadron, flew the Eindhoven operation with Flying Officer Jimmy Hill (‘armed’ with a cine camera) in O-Orange in the second formation of four Mosquitoes. Patterson recalls:
Mosquito operations were far more ambitious than Blenheim ops but casualties were lower. For a period from about July-September 1942 the casualties were as high as the low-level daylights in Blenheims a year before. There was even talk of the Mosquito having to be written off after all. In some way we still had such enormous faith in this aeroplane so we just could not believe that it could not be made to operate successfully at an acceptable rate of casualties. Operationally, the Philips works from a Mosquito point of view was regarded as a comparatively straightforward target, nothing to get terribly frightened of. Something we would have taken in our stride as part of routine operations.
Eight Mosquitoes of 105 Squadron and two of 139 Squadron, crewed by Flight Lieutenant Mike Wayman and Flight Lieutenant Charles Hayden and Pilot Officer John Earl ‘Junior’ O’Grady and Sergeant George Lewis, led by Edwards would rendezvous with the other bombers at a point over the North Sea. Then they would trail the Bostons and Venturas to the target despite the Mosquitoes’ cruising speed of 270-mph, about 100-mph faster. The Mosquitoes were to make a shallow diving attack on the Strijp works, while the other bombers bombed from low level. Unfortunately, the timings went wrong and instead of being 60 miles behind, the Mosquitoes caught up with the other bombers. As the Mosquitoes flew in over the Scheldt at 50ft they began to ‘wobble’ flying along at 160 mph, trying to maintain the speed of the leading bombers. They flew through a flock of ducks and one went through George Parry’s windscreen, split his leather flying-helmet and cut his head. He did not feel a thing but his head went ice-cold. Robbie Robson was cut by flying glass and thinking his pilot was ‘out’ grabbed the stick. Parry recovered and headed inland. Fw 190 fighters came up and Parry and Flight Lieutenant Bill Blessing, his No.2, broke away to decoy them away from the Venturas coming in over the coast behind. Parry went underneath an Fw 190 whose pilot did not see him and he and Blessing deliberately drew the 190s on themselves, then led them in a chase as they opened the throttles to full speed. The Mosquito IV was not quite as fast as the 190 at 20,000ft, but at deck level it was about 5 mph faster. Later, Parry was able to rejoin the formation. Blessing, who turned into the fighter attacks and circled for 10 minutes at 50ft decided to abandon the flight and made for home chased by the Fw 190, which only abandoned the pursuit about 8 miles east of Vlissingen. Pilot Officers Jimmy Bruce
DFM
and Mike Carreck had an equally close encounter with another Fw 190 until the enemy fighter ran out of ammunition and they also headed back to Marham after first jettisoning their bombs.
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Rain was falling in East Anglia on the morning of Sunday, 6 December 1942 but near the outskirts of Eindhoven, 60 miles from the coast of Holland, the weather was clear. Frits Philips and his wife, along with his brother-in-law van Riemsdijk and sister Jetty were visiting a niece who had christened a child. Philips was director-general of the Philips electro-chemical factories in Eindhoven, a built-up area of Holland only 50 miles from the Ruhr. Philips was the largest manufacturer of its type in Europe, thought to produce over one-third of the German supply of valves and certain radar equipment. Although some industrial processes had been dispersed to other sites, Eindhoven was still the main centre, especially for research into electronic countermeasures and radar. Production was centred in two factories, the Strijp Group main works and the Emmasingel valve and lamp factory, both in built-up areas within the town. Their destruction, which demanded precision bombing from a very low level to minimize the danger to the local people, was considered by London to be of vital importance. In Philips opinion however, his factory produced only a tiny amount of material for the Germans, a view shared by the Philips family and staff in America. But, in order to satisfy the German commission from Berlin, Philips always prepared graphs showing that production totals were better than they were so that the Germans could return home satisfied. These graphs were seen by a number of employees, some of who were members of the local resistance but Philips’ efforts to look less productive were not forwarded to the Allies so readily. After the church service Philips, his wife, brother-in-law and sister were drinking the usual cups of coffee, when suddenly they saw a formation of low-flying aircraft approaching in the distance. Their suspicion was that it had to be British machines. Philips’ first reaction was, ‘Are they going to bomb the Eindhoven railway station?’At the same moment they saw the first bombs being dropped and heard the crashing of the impact. With a feeling of deprivation they realized that their town was being bombed! As fast as they could Philips and his brother-in-law cycled to the De Laak, where fortunately nobody was harmed. At some distance they saw the Demer, the most important shopping-street in Eindhoven, which was already ablaze.
Only now did Frits Philips realize that it had been his factories that were the target of the bombardment. There was a momentary silence and he thought that the bombardment had finished but cycling to the Emmasingel yet another wave of bombers rushed in to the attack and he had hurriedly to seek shelter in a cycle-shop. Meanwhile, he noticed that the office building had been hit several times and it was on fire. Despite this Frits wanted to rescue two portraits of his father and Uncle Gerard, which had been painted by Jan Veth in 1916 at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the company. Fortunately all the other portraits and valuables had been stowed safely away long ago. The portraits were hanging in the commissioners-room at ground level. Frits climbed in through a window and he was able to rescue a silver cigar-box, which had been left by his father, from his desk. He distributed a box of good cigars amongst the fire brigade who had joined him. Philips went into the commissioners-room, opened the door and at that same moment a large piece of ceiling came crashing down. The firemen would not let him enter the room and so sadly he had to leave the portraits to the fire. The building burned out completely.
The Mosquito flown by Pilot Officer John Earl O’Grady, who was on his first trip, was hit by flak and streamed smoke as they left the target area. O’Grady and his navigator Sergeant George Lewis died when their aircraft hit the sea. Nine Venturas and four Bostons also failed to return. The Philips works was devastated, essential supplies destroyed and the rail network disrupted. Frits Philips concludes:
The destruction was enormous. The time of the bombardment, on a Sunday morning, was chosen because the factories were closed but the death toll was over one hundred civilians. The hospitals were crowded with injured people and part of Eindhoven was destroyed by fire. My wife and my sister Jetty visited the wounded. They told us that not one of them blamed the Allies! There was one man who had lost his wife and three of his seven children. Still no complaints could be heard from him. The morale of the population during that bombardment had been exemplary. Personally the bombardment caused very deep emotions. To see the factories, that had been erected which such devotion and offered jobs to thousands of people, going up in flames was a terrible reality of war, though I realized that this war against the Germans had to be fought hard if they were to be conquered. This thought reconciled me to this hellish scene. The following morning I had visitors from The Hague. Our commissioner Mr. Woltersom, Mr. Hirschfeld and Dr. Ringers, the government commissioner for reconstruction, came to see the results of the bombardment themselves. Ringers and myself were on good terms and it was his help we needed the most. He did not disappoint us. My immediate concern was to commence repairs of our factories on short term, utilising all our personnel to prevent them being deported to Germany. In the first months all the effort went into clearing away the debris. There was no way to make good the production capacity but it might have been worse. The heavy machinery could be repaired. Despite the never ending Allied bombardment, the German war industry had suffered less then expected but the damage was substantial.
On Christmas Day 1942, Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air in Winston Churchill’s wartime cabinet, wrote his Christmas message from the Air Ministry to the AOC-in-C [Air Officer Commander-in-Chief] Bomber Command at RAF High Wycombe, ACM Sir Arthur Harris:
The Dutch Minister came to see me yesterday in order to express on behalf of his Government the admiration which they felt for the skill with which the attack on the Philips Works at Eindhoven was planned and executed. The admiration of the gallantry of the attacking crews was only equalled by their gratitude for the accuracy of their aim and for the consequent avoidance of unnecessary injury and suffering to the civilian population.
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After Eindhoven (among the awards was a
DSO
for Wing Commander Edwards and a
DFC
for his navigator, Tubby Cairns) the Mosquitoes’ targets were small in a number of raids on railway lines and yards in France, Belgium and Germany. On 20 December eleven Mosquitoes of 105 and 139 Squadrons led by Squadron Leader (later Wing Commander) Reggie W. Reynolds
DFC
with Pilot Officer (later Air Commodore) E.B. ‘Ted’ Sismore attacked railway targets in the Oldenburg-Bremen area in north-west Germany. Reynolds, who was from Cheltenham, had flown a tour on Hampdens and a tour on Manchesters. Sismore, who hailed from Kettering, had flown on Blenheims on 110 Squadron in Malta. He had been wounded and was later evacuated by Sunderland to Gibraltar where he heard about the new ‘wooden wonder’. (At Blenheim OTU at Bicester and the Whitley OTU at Honeybourne where he flew on two of the 1,000-bomber raids, Sismore teamed up with Reynolds and off they had gone to Marham). One Mosquito came down so low that the crew read the name Fritz on a river-tug. The bombers swept over men working on a new barracks and one pilot reported later that ‘They were near the end of the work and we finished it off for them’. Near Delmenhorst Reynolds diverted to attack a gasholder and his four 500lb GP bombs set the gasometer on fire. The Mosquito took a 40mm cannon shell in the port engine, which made the aircraft lurch drunkenly but Reynolds managed to get the Mosquito on an even keel again. However, the anti-freeze mixture was pouring from the radiator and the cockpit filled with cordite fumes. His No.2, Warrant Officer Arthur Raymond Noesda, moved in closer to Reynolds. The pilot from Western Australia and his CO recrossed the German coast over Wilhelmshaven Bay. Coastal batteries opened up on them and the guns of a warship joined in. Fountains of water rose on each side of the aircraft which were down on the deck but Reynolds got his crippled Mosquito back to Marham where he landed wheels up. Squadron Leader Jack Houlston
DFC AFC
and his observer, Warrant Officer James Lloyd Armitage
DFC
failed to return. They were buried in the Reichswald Forest war cemetery. Luck finally ran out for Noseda, who had flown Blenheims on suicidal anti-shipping strikes from Malta and his observer, Sergeant John Watson Urquhart, on 3 January when they were hit and killed by anti-aircraft fire in the attack on engine sheds at Rouen.
In January 1943 attacks were maintained on rail targets on the continent. With no armament the Mosquitoes had to rely on speed and hedgehopping tactics. Sergeant Reginald Levy recalls that:
At that time the Focke Wulf 190 was appearing and they could get in one attack on us if they saw us first. The main casualties came from flying into the ground or sea, bird strikes and even from our own bombs. These were fitted with an 11-second delay but sometimes this didn’t work or else you were unlucky enough to get the blast from someone else’s bomb. Whilst attacking the marshalling yards at Terquier, France on 3 January I watched with apprehension, a bomb, from the machine in front of me, bounce high over my wing. Just before that, on New Year’s Eve 1942, I had been on another marshalling yard attack to Mouceau-sur-Chambres in Belgium. It was dusk and we ran into a snow storm and I flew between two huge slag heaps, only seeing them as they flashed past high above each wing. We then hit a bird, which smashed through the windscreen, covering my observer, Les Hogan and myself with feathers and blood. It was bitterly cold all the way back and although we bathed and scrubbed again the bird smell hung around and we were not the most popular partners at the New Year’s dance.
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Then on 27 January Wing Commander Hughie Edwards
VC DSO DFC
and Flying Officer ‘Tubby’ Cairns
DFC
led nine Mosquitoes of 105 and 139 Squadrons in a round trip of more than 1,200 miles to Copenhagen in occupied Denmark. Their target was the Burmeister and Wain diesel engine works. In war paint of dull silvery grey and green on the wings the Mosquitoes blended well with the cold, grey-green wave-tops and Danish countryside as they flew at low level in close formation to avoid attacks from enemy fighters. If it had been summer visibility would have been impaired by dust and squashed insects splattering their windscreens but Edwards’ only concern was that they were too far south and fuel consumption was a vital consideration. Near the coast light flak from ships opened up on the formation and Flight Lieutenant John ‘Flash’ Gordon and Flying Officer Ralph Gamble Hayes thought their aircraft had been hit when the trailing edge of the starboard wing became enveloped in puffs of blue smoke. Thinking he had been hit by flak Gordon carried out evasive action but he had caught the port wing in telegraph wires and damaged the aileron. This together with the fact that the rest of the formation had gained a considerable lead caused Gordon to decide to abandon and he jettisoned his bombs at 16.09 hours and headed home. Edwards and Cairns found the target only at the last moment and were on the point of returning but bombed the target and then broke for the sea and home. Light flak at the target was intense and accurate and Edwards’ Mosquito received two holes in the starboard nacelle.