Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers (24 page)

Bomb doors were opened well before the target was reached, and our aircraft, P Peter [PB256], not the best machine on the squadron, was lagging further and further behind. Then it happened. A burst of predicted flak exploded between our port inner engine and the fuselage. The interior of the Lancaster was filled with choking black smoke and we dipped forward into a steep dive. I remember reaching for my chute. It was my 13th operation!

At that moment we did not know it, but Jack had been wounded. Apart from metal fragments in various parts of his body, half the base cap of an 88mm shell had torn into his groin, missing his genitals by a fraction. After losing precious height, he managed to pull the aircraft out of its dive. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ ve got her. We’ ll go on and bomb.’ From the tone of his voice, we could have been on a cross-country exercise. Jimmy, the bomb-aimer, did not like the idea and said so. Who could blame him? But Jack had made his decision; ‘Behave yourself, Jimmy, we’ ll go on and bomb.’

And that is what happened. Jack kept the Lancaster straight and steady for the run in, while Jimmy bombed the small target visually. Still on our way in, we could see the rest of the Lancasters heading for home and the Mosquitoes just dwindling dots in the
distance. As we too turned for home, the daylight sky seemed a lonely place.

Jack, who was losing a lot of blood in spite of our emergency bandaging, was determined to hang on till he got us safely back to base, but Ken, the engineer, told him that because of damage to the aircraft we were leaking fuel, and must put down at the nearest available airfield on England’s south coast. We called up the Squadron Commander who was flying somewhere out ahead:

‘P Peter calling. P Peter calling. Pilot wounded. Intend landing Ford.’

Back snapped the reply: ‘Maintain radio silence.’

But then you could almost hear the wheels turning inside the CO’s head. It was daylight – radio silence was hardly that important when aircraft could be seen. A wounded pilot? Then who was flying the kite?

‘Hello P Peter. Good luck!’

Jack brought us all the way back, made a perfect landing at Ford and fainted as soon as the wheels stopped rolling. As he was being lowered from the aircraft on a stretcher, his delicate, schoolboy features as pale as death, a group of American flyers standing near, asked:

‘Whose that little guy?’

‘He’s our Skipper.’

‘Yeh? So the co-pilot brought this ship back?’

‘No. Our Skipper brought it back. We don’t have co-pilots.’

Ford was full of Polish, French, American and British flying types who had all put down temporarily for a variety of reasons. The place was cluttered with aggressive-looking Thunderbolts, Mustangs and Typhoons. It seemed ironical that these single-seat fighters should
each
be carrying more effective fire-power than a squadron of Lancasters.

As early as mid-1941 Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, DSO, MC, [who was then Air Vice Marshal] was commenting on British bombers:

Ever since those big “Heavies” appeared on the horizon I have been convinced we must arm them with cannon. If it means a drop in the bomb load – well that’s just too bad; but it’s better to carry 7,000 pounds and get to the target and back than to carry 8,000
pounds and get shot down. The Americans think we are crazy to go on quite happily with .303s in bombers; and I’m sure they are right.

Making the most of the opportunity, and taking Max Dolette, our stalwart Australian ‘Special’ with me, I nipped on a train and went to call on an uncle and aunt who owned what would now be called a garden centre in the middle of Chichester. They were surprised to see us stroll in, dressed in our flying gear, and made us warmly welcome. It was good to relax in a ‘normal’ atmosphere for a few hours.

Jack finished up in No 1 Ward, St Richard’s Hospital, in Chichester. My uncle kept an eye on him while he remained there and took him fruit each day. Meanwhile, the rest of us returned to Ludford Magna. I wrote to my mother and father about part of our journey:

The following day we travelled back by train in flying kit. The Londoners are marvellous. Sirens blowing and no one pays any attention. They just carry on with their work as if things are quite normal. We didn’t see anything of the Flying Bombs, and damage was slight except coming up from the South to Victoria where things are pretty devastated, I’m afraid.

The London taxi drivers are a grand bunch of blokes. We exchanged comments with many of them as we passed in transport provided from Victoria to King’s Cross. Nelson still stands undaunted in Trafalgar Square. To me he has
always
been London.

Back on the squadron I had a conversation with our Station Commander, Group Captain King. This most approachable of officers wanted to know in precise detail exactly what had happened on our trip to Coquereaux. As a Lancaster pilot himself he appreciated how magnificently our skipper had behaved. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Jack had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order – the only DSO to be won by 101 Squadron that year.

Sadly, after only a few days, the rest of Jack’s team, with the exception of Max and myself, were posted away from the squadron. Max, as a ‘Special’, was in an aircrew category unique to 101, and was almost immediately absorbed into another crew. I was
left feeling lonely and isolated – losing a crew was like being severed from a family.

However, being a gentleman of leisure for two or three weeks set in train events that were to affect the rest of my life. I met a beautiful young WAAF who was involved with Signals Duties on 101 Squadron. Miki had previously seen front-line action on a fighter ’drome when stationed at Biggin Hill, during the desperate Battle of Britain days. She knew all about the terrors of being bombed and strafed while still carrying on her work. Our experiences, emotions, the way we lived and our language led to a shared understanding. These alone would have been enough to bring us together, but of course there was much more. An overwhelming attraction, each for the other, soon meant we were in love.

We arranged a date for the day after our first meeting, but I nearly failed to keep it. A Flight Commander asked me to accompany a Pilot Officer Bateman and a ground staff Engineering Officer on an air test. Only the three of us were detailed to fly. Apparently a new crew had taken off the previous day, but had been unable to get the Lancaster (I Item RV293) above 8,000 feet and had returned to base long before reaching the target. We were required to give a second opinion on the aircraft’s performance.

We flew west over the Welsh mountains. To simulate operational conditions, the aircraft carried a full bomb load. Impatient to get the test over, (it was already late afternoon), I stood in the astrodome dressed in my best uniform ready for the evening date with the marvellous WAAF I had met the previous day. It soon became obvious that the ‘sprog’ crew had done well to get as high as they did. After half-an-hour’s flying we were barely over 3,500 ft. I Item was patently unfit for service.

The Engineering Officer was making careful notes when the starboard inner engine spluttered and stopped. Bateman was astounded to find the bomber would not maintain height on three engines – unheard-of for a Lancaster. He suggested we might jettison the 4000 pound ‘cookie’ over the Welsh mountains. With a clear vision of my Aunt Annie, I protested strongly and gave him a course to steer across England to the Wash. This would also bring us into the vicinity of Ludford Magna. As we crossed the east coast we were down to 1000 feet and I had positioned myself
in the nose, trying to remember the many things that Jimmy had told me about releasing bombs. All the switches on the panel had been flicked to ‘on’, everything seemed set. Flying out over the Wash, Bateman opened the bomb doors and said, ‘Let the bloody things go, Bruce. Quick!’ I pressed the tit. Nothing happened. Again and again – still they would not unstick. It was the Engineering Officer who twigged what was wrong. ‘Because this is an air test, the bombs are not wired up. We’ ll have to get them away manually.’ Remembering Jimmy’s instructions, I looked in the holder for the ‘bomb toggle’, a long piece of wire with a loop on the end specially fashioned for dislodging bombs by hand. It was missing. From Bateman: ‘We’ re down to 800 feet, for Christ’s sake!’ The odds on survival when plunging into the sea with a fully laden Lancaster would not be looked on with much optimism by bookies or insurance actuaries.

Having removed the small, oblong hatch-covers located on the deck above the bomb bay, I was lying flat on the floor, bathed in sweat and covered in grease and oil, trying to unhook the ‘cookie’ with an improvised contraption made up of a short length of wire cable, a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. Looking down the sides of the stubbornly resisting 4,000-pounder it was all too evident the sea was frighteningly close. The white crests that topped the green waves almost seemed to be splashing the underside of the Lancaster.

Just as the moment of despair overtook me, the monstrous drum of explosive broke away and plunged into the sea. Relieved of its weight, the aircraft eased out of its downward journey. Later, Bateman told me we had been at 300 feet when it went. It continued to be a tricky business, because, although we were now flying level, I Item still lacked the power to climb. We sent a message to base and obtained permission to come straight in. As we touched down a second engine started to splutter. The Engineering Officer looked as though he might be glad to get back to his desk!

After a lengthy report, and our heartfelt suggestion that this new aircraft should be sent back from whence it had come, I was still in time for my important date. But my appearance hardly lived up to the debonair image I had hoped to present. The image
was, in fact, rather closer to that of a fitter’s grease rag. Miki, who looked stunning in her beautifully pressed WAAF uniform, affected not to notice.

A little more than three weeks after Jack West’s misfortune I flew to Kiel with a new crew. There was heavy opposition over the target, the starboard elevator was holed, but otherwise it was a good trip. The skipper, 32-year-old Flight Lieutenant Jim Bursell, apart from being mature, also had a streak of the ‘swashbuckler’ in him, which prompted him from time to time to perform some ‘daring deeds’ well beyond the call of duty. On a later occasion we went to Neuss, near Düsseldorf in the Ruhr, and flew three times over this heavily defended target just to get our line up ‘absolutely right’, before dropping the bombs. Another time we continued over the target, although recalled by the Master Bomber because of poor visibility, in order to take line-overlap photographs proving that we could have bombed in any case. That was the time we were struck by lightning.

Jim Bursell, a tall New Zealander, was hero-worshipped by his young crew. They made no bones about telling me he was the best pilot on 101, the only one who had the guts to take off with a full load and then do a
double
climbing turn! Although, at the beginning, I did not share their enthusiasm for the skipper’s eccentricities, I eventually came to appreciate his outstanding abilities both as a pilot and a leader. From then on I was convinced we were in sure hands.

By mid-August Bomber Command was ready to return to attacking German cities, especially some of those that had proved difficult to eliminate earlier in the war. We had just completed a period about which the Bomber Command War Diaries say:

Operations during this period consisted of a multitude of small or medium-sized raids. The planners never worked harder, nor did the aircrew and the ground staffs. Sometimes aircrew flew two sorties in twenty-four hours. By day, they might be bombing targets only a few yards from the battle lines in Normandy; a few hours later they could be bombing an oil refinery in the Ruhr. Bomber Command flew approximately the same number of sorties in an average week during this period – more than 5,000 sorties – as in
the first nine months of the war! No one who flew in those weeks and survived will ever forget them.

And of course, for reasons already explained, 101 Squadron flew with even greater frequency than the rest!

Later, in October, we were still hard at it. On the 5th we air-tested a new machine, a G George, (the same designation as our previous one, which by now was worn out). That was around 1100. It proved to be satisfactory so at 1850 that night we flew it to Saarbrücken and bombed military concentrations. We did not return to base, having being diverted to Witchford.

The following morning we flew back to base from Witchford. Then at 1741 we took off for another night raid, this time on Bremen. On return there was hardly time to close our eyes before being called to a briefing for an urgently mounted mission supporting the army at Emmerich, and were airborne by noon. Within a brief period we were testing yet another new machine, because our ‘recently new one’ had been damaged by a bomb that had hit us when it fell from one of our own aircraft flying above us in the target area.

On our night ‘ops’ we flew around 20,000 feet above large German cities, while daylight targets were sometimes attacked by our heavy bombers at hair-raisingly low altitudes. For example, we bombed a coastal battery at Cap Gris Nez, near Calais, at only 2,700 feet.

Our longest trip had been to Stettin on the German/Polish frontier at the end of August. We had taken off as daylight was fading, flown over the North Sea, across northern Denmark, then found our way south to the target flying high above the Baltic. After bombing, we came back by the same route, and landed at base just as dawn was breaking – the trip had lasted 9 hours and 5 minutes.

Yet the most memorable moment on that mission was when our bomber stream flew over Malmö, blatantly breaking through the air-space of neutral Sweden. What a sight it was! After nearly five years of total ‘Black-Out’ both at home and on the Continent, it is almost impossible to describe the wonder of looking down on a city bathed in light. Houses with twinkling windows, streets lined with illuminated shops, highways picked out by marching rows of lamps, traffic with headlights blazing, neon signs, illuminated docks, and perhaps most strange of all, an airport aglow with light. It was a fairyland in a world at war.