Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
We did the run, Frank calmly keeping me paying attention, then set off for a very long, chilly, anxious, noisy, frustrating 1,000 mile, four hour, trip back in a damaged aircraft, with a vast question mark over landing conditions. A petrol twitch and (what I was to find a lot later) the fact that nobody would talk to us on W/T or R/T because all the codes, which changed frequently, had gone out the top into the oggin of Alten Fjord. I put some outrageous priorities on my W/T requests for courses to steer and aerodromes to land at. I think I once told them our squadron, aircraft number and service numbers in order to establish who we were, but to no avail.
We discussed feathering one engine as the fuel situation was getting desperate (in our crippled condition we had to keep away from the enemy and having to fly at 15,000ft because of the fuel position, was just about our most vulnerable height). The sea, what we could see of it through generally 10/10 cloud looked unusually calm for the North Sea, suggesting that the light winds I had found on the way up, had, crucially, not changed much. At long, long last, we saw a gap in the cloud just after ETA, dived anxiously through it and saw land. Soon it became Wick, the most Northerly mainland ’drome there and with all fuel gauges reading zero, Frank made the most treasured landing of all. (It would have been a good one to me with 15 bounces, but it was not at all like that.) By the time we got back to Leuchars for a debriefing and a much appreciated operational meal (one revered egg), the bar had closed.
We had spent 9 hours 25 minutes in the air that day, with Frank’s careful course keeping and cosseting of the engines a vital factor in our survival and in getting some useful gen. The closed bar, three days after my 21st birthday party, was a pity, but on my birthday, after a slightly shorter trip, my Sergeant’s Mess friends had realised the position and laid on a vast supply of drinks for us ‘after time’. Frank, then a Flight Lieutenant in deference to the occasion, came quietly in to share the celebrations. I remembered what one colleague had said when he heard we were going on that particular detachment to Leuchars, which incidentally cost us half our aircrew strength, the splendid crew of Bill Simonson and Jock Reid. ‘Well’, quoth Jimmy Clayton, who did a lot of good work with navigator Dicky Richards, ‘I suppose we have to learn how to spell “posthumous”.’
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Willard Harris DFC of 544 Squadron recalls a trip on 2 September 1944.
My excellent navigator Flying Officer Les Skingley and I were briefed to photograph the Experimental and Testing Establishment for the V-1 and V2 bombs on the Peenemünde Peninsula. These were fired out to sea to land in the Baltic. Although our Mosquito MM246 was a long-range version with 100-gallon drop-tanks on each wingtip, it was considered that the very strong NW winds that day meant returning to the UK without much fuel reserves. So it was decided we would fly south from Peenemünde and land on the east coast of Italy at San Severo. There was a PRU unit there and they had film processing and printing facilities. The trip out was uneventful when we emptied our drop tanks and started on our main tanks. On high level trips the usual practice was to climb until you start making cloud trail at around 28,000ft in summer. As soon as we entered enemy territory Skingley would turn around and kneel on his seat looking backward. He would say when we started making trail and we would fly just below. In this way we could see any aircraft flying above and attacking from behind. Poor Skingley, he was on his knees at all times whenever over enemy territory except when in the nose operating the cameras.
We reached the southern end of the Peninsula and Skingley started filming. About half way up our run I spotted two Fw 190s just above and either side of me flying south. As the closing speed between us would be around 800 mph by the time they turned around and flew back there would be many miles between us, not a worry really.
We completed our run and turned round over the Baltic and started our run south for good measure in case we missed anything. Skingley came out of the nose and took his position looking backward and immediately said, ‘someone on our tail and he’s gaining on us!’ Right, time to drop the wing tanks and gain a little speed. I pressed the release button and horror, only the port tank dropped! This called for hard left-rudder and aileron to keep the aircraft level and this was slowing us down. After several attempts on the release button and rocking the wings the tank finally dropped. So I pushed the stick gently forward and that’s what a Mosquito likes! But Skingley said, ‘he’s still gaining. By this time we were over the city of Stettin and AA fire started coming up. Fortunately they miscalculated our speed and it was behind us and in front of the pursuing aircraft. Sensibly he turned away and left us in the clear. We then had a peaceful journey across Germany and Austria to land at San Severo. The ground staff there were very helpful. After lunch they took us through the village to the beach for a swim. My recollection of the village was of the trays of sliced tomatoes on either side of the road drying in the summer sun. The dusty road was unpaved and every vehicle raised clouds of dust, which settled on the tomatoes. Since then I’ve not been keen on Italian ketchup! We had a very refreshing dip in the Adriatic. Next day we flew our processed prints back to Benson.
Two days later on 4 September, Flight Lieutenant Kenneth W. Watson
RAAF
and his navigator Flying Officer Kenneth H. Pickup
RAFVR
of 540 Squadron were tasked to photograph the railway lines between Nürnburg and Munich and then fly on to San Severo. Ken Pickup recalls:
We were airborne at 09.25 hours and over Nürnburg at 29,000ft by 11.00 hours. By this time I was in the nose preparing to film when I spotted at 600 yards an He 280
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approaching from starboard. I immediately alerted Ken Watson, who instantly took evasive action by making tight turns to port but the aircraft disappeared from view. Almost immediately its place was taken by an Me 262 500 yards to port. By now I had scrambled from the nose to my seat taking a kneeling position facing aft so that I could give a running commentary of the situation as I saw it. It was then that I sighted a second Me 262 about 1,000 yards to port and the jets attacked alternately. These attacks continued intermittently for 22 minutes. There was a lot of manoeuvring so that the actual aggressive attacking time would be a mere 15 minutes. We were still taking evasive action by very tight turns and losing height. We were soon at 3,000ft. At 11.36 hours one Me 262 broke off the attack and flew away. The other remained with us. As soon as I signalled this fact to Ken he dived to zero feet. The aircraft then followed us to about 1,500ft and stayed above us. We were now over farmland and approaching a belt of trees, which we climbed above skimming the tops. It was at this point that we hit the tip of the Bavarian pine, which shattered our nose perspex, filling the cockpit with pine needles and making it very uncomfortable, cold and draughty. It was at this juncture that the remaining Me 262 left us, but we still had to reach San Severo with our films. Since the aircraft was damaged there was only one course to be taken and that was through the Brenner Pass. So we did this and eventually touched down at San Severo at 13.05 hours covered in pine needles and looking like two blue hedgehogs!’
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On 11 September a 544 Squadron crew had a close encounter with Focke Wulf 190s. Flight Lieutenant Ronald Foster
RNZAF
and his navigator, Frank Moseley who came from Coventry, flew sixty-nine operations over Europe during the last 18 months of the war, five of them returning on one engine. Foster, who had interrupted a commerce degree course at Victoria University to volunteer for the RNZAF when he was aged 20, recalls:
Improvements were being made on a day-to-day basis. You might hear that the Fw 190 was faster at 26,000ft so we flew at 28,000ft. But the Mosquito was a thoroughbred. It took a bit of handling during evasive action but I always told myself that it was at least 5 mph faster than any of theirs. This claim was put to the test on 11 September over Berlin when Frank reported an Fw 190 closing on cross course to starboard. Normally he would be seated next to me and following maps plotting a course by dead reckoning to the target to be photographed. I decided the best option to and from the target was for Frank to kneel up behind us and to put his head up into the blister to keep an eye out to the rear while I navigated. I matched the Fw 190’s course and then when Frank yelled that the fighter was opening fire I slammed the Mosquito back on the original course and he missed. I was teasing every ounce of speed out of her literally with my fingertips. Then Frank shouted that the 190 was out of ammunition. He invited me to have a look. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. There, level with our tailplane was the 190. The German pilot gave me a wave and flew away. I did not wave back. I never realised they got that close. I forced the 3,500hp Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to maximum revolutions. This was only allowed in extreme emergencies and then only for two minutes before they over heated and stopped but I was a bit upset and gave poor Frank a hard time on the way home. Every day aircrew faced the possibility of not making the return journey. After one sortie over France our ground crew counted more than 200 holes in our Mosquito fuselage. I could visualise myself in a dinghy in the North Sea but that’s as far as I thought.
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Another threat at this time was the
Tirpitz
, which would have to be put out of action once and for all by Lancasters of 5 Group. On 11 September thirty-eight Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons, accompanied by Flight Lieutenant George Watson and Warrant Officer John McArthur in PR.XVI MM397 to provide up-todate target information and weather report, flew to their forward base at Archangel, in northern Russia. The attack by twenty-seven Lancasters, twenty of which, were carrying ‘Tallboys’, the others, 400-500lb ‘Johnny Walker mines’, went ahead on 15 September and considerable damage was caused to the battleship. Subsequent PR revealed that although badly damaged, the
Tirpitz
was still afloat (albeit beyond practical repair, although this was not known at the time). On 16 September Frank Dodd and Eric Hill flew what Eric Hill considered perhaps the most harrowing trip they ever flew.
Having got what we hoped were some decent pictures of the oilworks at Magdeburg, we spotted two of the new twin-jet Me 262s and were chased around from whatnots to breakfast time for what seemed ages. When I gave the order to turn, Frank flung old NS639 into some violent turns and we got away. They had about 100-mph speed advantage and it was a bit unnerving to see them skidding by, unable to hold our turn. About eight times it happened, at one time Frank frightened the daylights out of them by lining up behind them for an imaginary squirt with our non-existent guns. Frank found some cloud, into which we gratefully disappeared. After a quiet spell trying to confuse the radar, we emerged, hoping to be able to head for home. Some nasty unkind flak came up a little off our port wing while the two jets were perched about 100 yards away on the starboard and above. This was nasty but we found some more cloud, played possum for long enough this time and trolleyed home, happy to hear Benson’s call sign ‘Gingerwine’, welcoming us into the fold.
On 29 September Flight Lieutenant Ronnie Knight, now the 540 Squadron Navigation Officer, flew what he considered probably his most exciting trip. By now Peter Hollick, his first pilot, had completed his tour and Ronnie Knight flew with various other pilots including Wing Commander (later Sir) Alfred H.W. ‘Freddie’ Ball
DSO DFC
, who had taken command of the squadron that same month. Knight recalls:
Our operational sorties were high level, usually at 30,000ft and 500ft below the condensation layer so that if we were attacked by German fighters we would see their con trails. However, the trip on 29 September, my first with the CO, was low level with forward facing cameras. The target was a dam on the River Rhine between Basle and Mulhouse and Wing Commander Ball decided we would do it. It was not an ideal trip as we were using a Mossie, which was used to high-level trips and the same heading system was still operating. To make things worse, our intercom and R/T went u/s. Despite this we carried on and we flew very low level [200ft!]. When we got to the Alps we were flying below them through passes. Quite a way before the target I took a look in the top blister and I saw four Fw 190s flying towards us. I shouted a warning to the pilot who heard me despite having no intercom. He pulled the Mossie up in the tightest turn I ever experienced. We then weaved our way down one of the passes. I thought, ‘Thank God, we’re going home.’ However, we made three other attempts at photographing the dam but the flak and the fighters made it impossible so we had to give up. We landed at St. Dizier as we were running out of fuel. Due to the lack of R/T facilities we couldn’t contact Benson so overdue procedures were being instigated when we got back.
At Benson on 13 October Flight Lieutenant Hubert C.S. ‘Sandy’ Powell, a pilot on 540 Squadron learned that his wife had given birth to a daughter, Jennifer Frances, in a nursing home at Edgware, London. On the 14th he sneaked off to hitch-hike home to see them both. Then on the 15th Powell and Flight Sergeant Joe Townshend, his navigator who was in his early twenties flew a PR sortie to east Germany. Light flak greeted them over Peenemünde and after photographing their final target, at Stettin, they returned after five hours in the air in the usual adrenaline-induced high-spirited exuberance. ‘Sandy’ Powell was three years older than his navigator and he tended to be absent minded and somewhat odd, taking most of any aggressive enemy action as an interesting experience, but not in a very serious manner. He had a tendency to sing parts of old ballads in an unusual monotone when gaps occurred in any action, which he felt needed filling. He was always mildly surprised when he found himself walking away from his aircraft completely unscathed after a complicated landing. The 16th passed quietly playing Mah Jong in the crew room at Benson. On the 17th Powell and Townshend and three other crews were transported to Scotland in a Hudson aircraft. Their orders called for an early start On 18 October and they were aroused at 04.45 hours. After breakfast they arrived in the Operations Room at 05.45 where a middle-aged Scottish intelligence officer briefed them that their job was to locate the
Tirpitz
. Information from the Norwegian resistance stated that the ship had left Kaa Fjord on its way south for Tromsø, where it was to be used as a heavy artillery battery. The
Tirpitz
lay stationary in Ofot Fjord restrained by tidal anchors wedged into the rocky seabed below. Around her for protection were floating booms hung with anti-submarine/torpedo next. These hung deep into the water down towards the seabed. The
Harald Haarfagre
, an anti-aircraft vessel stationed to the northeast, and several land-based anti-aircraft batteries provided protection against air attack. The position to be searched was beyond the usual range of the Mosquito so they were to refuel at Scatsta (now Sullom Voe) in the Shetland Islands opposite St. Magnus Bay. Met briefing, navigational planning and recognition signals data were completed and they reached the hangars at 06.50. After changing into flying gear they carried parachutes and other equipment to Mosquito PR.XVI NS641, which was fitted with drop-tanks and had a fuel load of 850 gallons. Townshend continues: