The Battle of Berlin: Bomber Command Over the Third Reich, 1943–1945

By Martin W. Bowman

“A fascinating look into the aircrews used and the effect on those who had to live through this constant bombing” by the RAF during World War II (UK Historian).

Berlin was bombed by four Allied air forces between 1940 and 1945. British bombers alone dropped 45,517 tons of bombs, while the Americans a further 23,000 tons. By 1944, some 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of Berlin’s population, had been evacuated to rural areas. An effort was made to evacuate all children from Berlin, but this was defeated by parents and many evacuees who soon made their way back to the city. However, by May 1945, 1.7 million people—40% of the population—had fled the city.

This fitting tribute to those who died in the relentless struggle to knock Berlin, and hopefully Germany, out of the war resonates with eyewitness accounts and background information which the author has painstakingly investigated and researched. The result is a hugely fascinating and highly readable narrative containing very real and unique observations by British and Commonwealth aircrew and, equally importantly, the long-suffering citizens of Berlin, and well as the capital’s defenders.

Though not a defeat in absolute terms, in the operational sense The Battle of Berlin was an offensive that Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and his aircrews could not win. “Berlin won” concluded Sir Ralph Cochrane, the Air Officer Commanding 5 Group RAF Bomber Command. “It was just too tough a nut.”

“An impressively informative, deftly written, exceptionally well documented, and expertly organized history . . . a seminal work of original scholarship.” —Midwest Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526786401

Martin W. Bowman

MARTIN W. BOWMAN is the author of over 100 books on military and commercial aviation as well as photographic books on a variety of subjects. He has participated in German and USAFE air/land and night air/drop missions on C-160 and C-130 Hercules aircraft, and is a frequent contributor to aviation journals in Great Britain, the USA and Australia. In 1999 he was appointed an official researcher for DERA.

Book preview

Chapter One

Berlin Season

‘It has been decided that the primary objective of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular, of industrial workers. The aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised community life throughout Germany. It should be emphasised that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy, they are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.’

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris

CB OBE

, who once declared that the Germans living under a savage tyranny were ‘not allowed the luxury of morale’.

‘Achtung, Achtung!’ Major Eckart-Wilhelm ‘Hugo’ von Bonin listened impatiently but attentively to the long litany of instructions from his bordfunker (radio-operator) crouched in the cockpit of their Bf 110G-4 night-fighter as they continued their Helle Nachtjagd (‘night chase’) across the Belgian countryside. Thirty minutes earlier the 24-year-old Staffelkapitän (Squadron Commander) had lifted the Messerschmitt with its deadly electronic wizardry and heavy firepower off from St. Trond/Sint-Truiden and he had then climbed at maximum rate to an operational height of 5,300 metres. Their route was to take them to one of the Himmelbett Räume (‘four-poster bed boxes’), each one of them a theoretical spot in the sky, in which one to three fighters orbited a radio beacon waiting for bombers to appear.

Each box, about 20 miles square, which had names like ‘Hamster’, ‘Eisbär’ (‘Polar Bear’) and ‘Tiger’ (around Terschelling Island), was a killing zone in the path of hundreds of incoming prey. All approaches to occupied Europe and Germany were divided into circular and partly overlapping areas, which took full advantage of Bomber Command’s tactic in sending bombers singly and on a broad front and not in concentrated streams. The ‘Himmelbett Räume’ and the Nachtjäger were orchestrated by Jägerleitoffiziers (JLOs or GCI-controllers) in ‘Battle Opera Houses’. Though the JLOs were far removed from the actual battles, high tiered rows of Leuchtspukers or ‘Light Spitter girls’ projected information onto a huge screen for them and operators moved the plots on the Seeburg plotting tables.

The Jägerleitoffizier announced monotonously at regular intervals, ‘No Kuriere in sight’ and von Bonin had to continue orbiting. ‘Hugo’s brother, Oberstleutnant Hubertus von Bonin (Knight‘s Cross of the Iron Cross recipient) was killed in action on 15 December 1943. ‘Hugo’, who lost two other brothers on the Eastern Front, had twenty-three confirmed night abschüsse (victories). He was impatient to add to his score and probably did not concern himself with the bombers’ destinations on Thursday 18/Friday 19 November 1943. He was not to know that it marked the start of the ‘Main Battle of Berlin’. Some 440 Lancasters had been dispatched to the ‘Big City’. Although the Nachtjagdgeschwader did not know the actual numbers involved, the night predators were unconcerned, satisfied in the knowledge that there would be scores of ubiqutous black ‘Fat Cats’ for them to aim for.

Von Bonin was one of many who eagerly awaited the code-word from the Jägerleitoffizier that would send him scurrying into action in his alloted box. Suddenly, as if by magic, ‘Have Kurier for you, Kirchturm 10 (1000 metres), course 300°.’ Using the figures on a clock face, i.e. east to west in the northern part of the night-fighting area, he added helpfully: ‘Kurier flying from two to eleven.’

Startled but composed, the three-man crew reacted with excitement and enthusiasm. According to the information from the Jägerleitoffizier they were only a few kilometres behind a British bomber! The enemy aircraft had been picked up on Würzburg ground radar, fixed on the plotting table and transmitted to Major von Bonin and his crew stalking the bomber. As soon as Oberfeldwebel Friedrich Johrden, his bordfunker, picked up contact on his Lichtenstein radar set, he transmitted ‘Emil-Emil’ to alert his JLO, but there was no indication yet on the Lichtenstein. It was 0220 hours. They hoped to reach the ‘Fat Cat’ before it left the range of the Würzburg ground radar.

‘1,000 metres, 800 metres, 500, 400, 300 metres!’ Power off and minimum speed in order not to overtake him, von Bonin had to attack from behind and that at the dangerous rear turret of the 4-mot [four-motor]. ‘There he is!’ Their eyes looked out and focused on a black shape of the Britisher. Small, blueish exhaust flames made it easier to keep the target in sight. Four engines, twin-tail, were recorded almost subconsciously. No sudden movement that might attract their attention. Calm now! Guns armed? Night sight switched on? Everything OK! Now von Bonin could see that it was a ‘Lanki’. He applied a little more power and approached the Lancaster cautiously. Now he was exactly behind him at about 100 metres’ range. The rear turret was clearly recognizable. His bordfunker remained silent.

‘Pauke! Pauke!’ (‘Kettledrums! Kettledrums!’). Von Bonin had obtained visual contact of his target, crossing gently from starboard to port. It was ‘L-London’ of 115 Squadron which was skippered by 20-year-old Australian Pilot Officer Raymond Ernest Lee Peate. Born in North Sydney, he was employed as a motor body painter at Highgate Hill in Brisbane before his posting to England. Peate had taken off from Little Snoring airfield north of the Norfolk village at 1803 hours.

Friedrich Johrden immediately transmitted ‘Ich beruhe’ and von Bonin closed in rapidly for the kill. The equipment was checked and the four machine guns and two MG-FF 2cm cannon were loaded and cocked. At the bordfunker’s feet were ammunition drums with seventy-five rounds each for the pair of deadly cannon. Now the Lichtenstein screen was aglow with the green time base and the ground blips, which also showed their altitude.

‘250, 200, 150 metres.’ A slipstream shook the Messerschmitt. They were close! At 100 metres von Bonin pressed the gun-button on the stick and was startled at the rattle of the cannon. He stayed behind the great night bird, firing and observing the projectiles striking the rear turret and the fuselage. Strikes peppered the fuselage and danced along the wing root. An equally short burst of brightly-coloured tracer disappeared into the Lancaster’s wing and fuselage. He must have been hit! The Lanc burst into flames. Doomed, it fell away to port in a flaming death dive, impacting in a field at Hermée in Belgium 4 kilometres north-west of Herstal. ‘Horrido!’ (‘Tallyho’), exclaimed von Bonin over R/T to ground control to announce his success.

None of the Lancaster crew survived the encounter. Sergeant Neil Mackay, the 25-year-old second pilot, was from Paisley in Renfrewshire. Sergeant Hugh George Bannister, the flight engineer, only 19 years old, a former Halton apprentice, was on his eighteenth op. Pilot Officer Noel Reginald Shaw, the 27-year-old navigator, was from Oldham in Lancashire. Canadian Pilot Officer Murray Lincoln Richardson was the bomb-aimer. Flight Sergeant François Benigne Collenet, the 22-year-old Belgian wireless-operator, never had the chance to radio base before he died at his post. Warrant Officer 2 Sidney Andrew Anderson, the 23-year-old mid-upper gunner who was born in Cromer, Manitoba, and Sergeant George Vivian Sharratt, the 21-year-old rear gunner, had no time to open fire on their attacker before they too were killed. They were all laid to rest at Heverlee War Cemetery.

At Little Snoring Peake’s flight commander, Squadron Leader Jim Starkie had seven letters of commiseration to write to the next of kin. Telegrams had already been sent to Ernest Rory and Mary Peate in Australia, to Alexander and Adamina Stewart Mackay in Paisley and to George and Constance Bannister in Romford. Hugh Bannister’s mother had died when he was only 3 and his father then married his late wife’s sister. In Oldham Walter and Susan Shaw were no doubt heartbroken to receive the news they had been dreading; likewise the Collenets domiciled at Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex. In Canada, Murray Richardson’s kith and kin received word of his untimely death. At Radville, Saskatchewan Sarah Anderson, a widow who had remarried, now had the sad task of passing on the bad news to Sidney’s sister and his four brothers that he had been killed on operations. In Tamworth, Staffordshire, George Sharratt’s young wife Margaret Edwina Olga no doubt tried to come to terms with the heartache of knowing that she was now a widow.

Von Bonin’s Viermot [four-engined bomber] took his score to twenty-four and counted towards the major’s coveted Ritterkreuz. The highly-prized Knight’s Cross was awarded to von Bonin on 5 February 1944 when he had gained thirty-one victories.

‘Naxos’ and ‘Flensburg’ equipment homing onto the H2S airborne, ground-scanning radar system and the ‘Monica’ tail-warning device might have identified von Bonin’s victim. They had become a poisoned chalice and bomber crews were instructed not to leave sets on too long.

None of this technical wizardry had been available in the early part of the war when raids on Berlin were few and infrequent and when they did materialize, numbers were small and navigation and bombing aids were almost unknown. Not that Germany was prepared for bombing raids at night. When the subject of night-fighting was raised at a conference of German service chiefs just before the war, it was dismissed out of hand with the words: ‘Night fighting! It will never come to that!’ Up until May 1940 the night air defence of the Reich was almost entirely the province of the flak arm of the Luftwaffe.

After Neville Chamberlain had resigned the premiership on 10 May 1940 and Winston Churchill had become prime minister of Great Britain, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler realized there would be no peace deal and the Battle of Britain began in mid-July. Often outnumbered and nearing exhaustion, RAF fighter pilots did not win the conflict but they prevented the Luftwaffe from winning it. Without air superiority, Hitler tried a different tack; one which he no doubt came to rue. In July Winston Churchill had addressed the Chief of Air Staff in these words:

‘In case there is an attack on the centre of Government in London, it seems very important to return the compliment the next day upon Berlin. I understand you will have by the end of this month a respectable party of Stirlings ready. Perhaps the nights are not yet long enough. Pray let me know.’

On the night of Friday 23/Saturday 24 August 1940 the Luftwaffe rained bombs on London; the first to fall on the capital since 1918. Little damage was done, but Londoners were as one with Churchill. American foreign correspondent John Negley Farson summed up the prevailing mood:

‘I have never thought of the English as a revengeful nation – a conquering race seldom is – yet one of the most menacing things for Hitler was the way that everyone dispassionately discussed the urgent need for the immediate bombing of Berlin. There was no false sentiment; it was just that no one there believed there was any other answer to the indiscriminate German night-bombing than to bomb Berlin off the map.’¹

Bomber air crews too were particularly keen to ‘dish out’ some form of retribution for the blitz on British cities. On 14/15 November 1940 Robert Kee never forgot seeing the bombing of Coventry from Upper Heyford airfield where he was learning to fly twin-engined bombers. Born on 5 October 1919 in Calcutta where his father ran a jute business, Kee read Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford before leaving in 1940 to join the RAF. He trained as a pilot and in July 1941 was commissioned and joined 44 ‘Rhodesia’ Squadron at Waddington, 4 miles south of Lincoln, flying Hampdens. ‘The feeling was I wish I could bomb Berlin and get our own back a bit,’ Kee wrote. He did bomb Berlin twice. ‘I think there was pleasure in the thought that we were reciprocating after the bombing of places like Coventry and London.’² Some 449 bombers dropped 30,000 incendiary bombs which killed 568 people and damaged 71 factories and 41,500 homes, of which 2,306 were destroyed. The devastation was so great that the Nazi Minister of Propaganda Doktor Joseph Goebbels coined the phrase ‘Koventrieren’ or ‘Coventrate’ to describe the utter destruction of a city by bombing attack with an excessive amount of bombs.

The RAF bomber crews, who had generally been instructed to aim for targets of industrial or military importance, noted that the attack on Coventry and those on a host of other British cities that followed seemed to bring about a change of policy. The effects of the bombing and the possible breakdown in civilian morale was not lost in the minds of the senior members of the government and Bomber Command, but Britain had neither the aircraft nor the capacity to retaliate other than the ability to make ‘pin-prick’ raids on towns and cities in the Reich. By the end of 1940 the ‘Big City’, as it was known, was bombed on only ten occasions and from January to early March 1941 there were no further trips to the city, but Berlin was never left untouched for long.

On 12/13 March Bomber Command flew 257 sorties against targets in Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin. These raids came after the second blitz on Portsmouth on 10/11 March when more than 1,000 people were rendered homeless by thousands of incendiaries and hundreds of HE bombs dropped on the city. The raid, like the one on Coventry, which had remained uppermost in Robert Kee’s mind, had a profound effect on George Carter, a navigator on a Whitley bomber, who wrote:

‘It is the first time I have been to the ‘Big City’ and…. I hope we knock the blazes out of the target (which incidentally is the post office in the centre of the city). Before, I have always felt sorry for the people down below, but the other night I came over Portsmouth on the way home and saw it afire. I saw an explosion about 2,000 feet high. So now I feel different about it and I shall not be too careful to hit the post office. I have got one bottle, one brick and one piece of concrete to throw out with some personal messages to the Hun.’

It was not until 14 February 1942 when the famous ‘area bombing’ directive, which had gained support from the Air Ministry and the prime minister, was sent to Bomber Command. Air Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris

CB OBE

, who arrived at High Wycombe on 22 February to take up his duties as commander-in-chief, was directed by Marshal of the RAF Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, to break the German spirit by the use of night area rather than precision bombing and the targets would be civilian, not just military. Harris, a compact, silent, bull-terrier of a man with one outstanding characteristic, a bitter hatred of the ‘Hun’ and all that he stood for, was 48 years old, born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on 13 April 1892, the son of a member of the Public Works Department of the Indian Civil Service. In 1910, aged 17, Harris had emigrated to Southern Rhodesia. He joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment but returned to England in 1915 to join the Royal Flying Corps, with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. No.44 Squadron had been formed at Hainault in Essex on 24 July 1917 and by the end of the war it was commanded by Harris. He remained in the Air Force throughout the 1920s and 1930s and when he assumed command of RAF Bomber Command, among the squadrons he inherited was 44 Squadron, which became the first to convert completely to Lancasters, flying their first operational sorties in this aircraft with a mine-laying sortie in Heligoland Bight on 3 March 1942 and 97 (Straits Settlements) Squadron, which became the second Lancaster squadron after beginning conversion in January 1942. The first night-bombing operation was on 10/11 March when two of 44 Squadron’s aircraft took part in the raid by 126 aircraft on Essen.

Known variously as ‘Butch’, ‘Bomber’ or ‘Bert’ (as Churchill, using naval slang, would often address him in private conversation), he has been described as ‘a rough, tough, vulgar egomaniac’. To his crews, who he fondly referred to as his ‘old lags’, he was simply ‘the ‘guv’ner’. ‘If he had put out the word, his squadrons would have flown up to and through the gates of Hell,’ wrote one of his pilots. ‘What stopped us in our tracks was the speed at which he was asking our crews to ride up to one of those gates.’

Whether you liked him, whatever the appellation, or despised him, Harris was just what Bomber Command needed. He feared no foe, senior officers or politicians. He brooked no arguments from juniors and pooh-poohed any from those of equal or senior status who held a contra opinion. Harris knew what he was going to do and proceeded to move Heaven and Earth to do it. Woe betide anyone who stood in his way. He was a firm believer in the Trenchard doctrine and with it he was going to win the war. According to Professor Solly Zuckerman, technical advisor to those responsible for the bombing policy, Harris ‘liked destruction for its own sake’.

Sir Arthur warmed to the task, announcing: ‘The Germans entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind…. We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go on with the war. That is our object; we shall pursue it relentlessly.’

Furthermore he said later: ‘There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My reply to that is that it has never been tried … and we shall see.’

In the summer of 1941 RAF Bomber Command had, on paper, a nominal strength of 49 bomber squadrons or almost 1,000 aircraft but 8 of these squadrons were equipped with Blenheim light bombers and Harris’s predecessor had been forced to rely mainly on the Wellington squadrons, for so long the backbone of Bomber Command operations. However, new, four-engined bombers like the Manchester, Stirling and the mighty four-engined Lancaster, which would enter service in early 1942, were coming off the drawing board. In May and June that same year Harris unleashed the first ‘Thousand’ raids on Cologne, Essen and Bremen. During March to July 1943 the Battle of the Ruhr followed and in July-August Hamburg was obliterated by fire of biblical proportions.

The fate of Hamburg aroused great anxiety in Berlin, especially when RAF aircraft dropped leaflets that called upon all women and children in the capital to leave at once, as they had done before the raids on Hamburg had begun. On 6 August Goebbels, deeply worried that the RAF would repeat the threat that they would ‘Hamburgise’ Berlin, caused panic by ordering an immediate partial evacuation of the city. By September 1943, 800,000 people had left Berlin. Over the coming months, until March 1944, a further 400,000 people were evacuated as the population of the capital dropped from 4 to 2.8 million. By the end of the year there were more than 6 million German evacuees from the bombing nationwide.³

Harris considered that the recent successes in both series of attacks confirmed his views that the time was ripe for the ‘Final Battle’: the destruction of the capital of the Third Reich. With the aid of H2S Berlin was easily identifiable from the air at night and the long winter nights made the deep penetration flights to the ‘Big City’ possible. When the weather forecast predicted not only favourable conditions over the target but acceptable landing conditions for the returning bomber fleet, which usually numbered between 400 and 700 aircraft, Bomber Command would go to war from scores of aerodrome villages carved out of farmland that had been lifted from pre-war obscurity and gave the impression that after the RAF had passed by they would lapse into obscurity again.

In a message to his crews that was read out at briefings before one particular raid on Berlin ‘Bomber’ Harris announced in a quiet but forceful tone: ‘Tonight you are going to the Big City. You will have the opportunity to light a fire in the belly of the enemy that will burn his black heart out.’

To reinforce his obsession to destroy the capital of the Third Reich, in a minute to Churchill on 3 November 1943 Harris said:

‘We must get the USAAF to wade-in in greater force. If they will only get going according to plane and avoid such disastrous diversions as Ploesti, and getting ‘nearer’ to Germany from the Plains of Lombardy (which are further from 9/10th of war productive Germany than is Norfolk) we can get through it very quickly. We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USAAF will come in on it. It will cost, between 400-500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.’

However, the USAAF could not attack a long-range target like Berlin for another ten months, by which time their fighters were able to escort the bombers on this long trip. So Bomber Command would have to undertake the Battle of Berlin on its own. All that was needed were a fair wind and good weather but October followed the same pattern as September, with more raids on German cities and some French targets and the first two weeks of November 1943 were a cold, dank and misty time. The Lincolnshire Fens lay swathed in fog for days on end and frost gleamed on the fields and hedges, warmed now and again by fitful bursts of sunshine, which made it possible to fly. Then the vibration from 2,000 Merlin engines running at climbing power (2,850 revs and +9 lb boost) would make the glasses dance on the bars of Lincolnshire’s pubs, much to the wonder of those whose wartime role was possibly more permanent than that of the air crews who rode the sky above them.

A few nights before the Battle of Berlin began, American war correspondent Martha Gellhorn visited a Lancaster station in Lincolnshire to witness the squadrons’ departure and return from a raid on Modane in France. Martha was not permitted to fly on raids like her male colleagues. She was a woman who maintained a certain emotional detachment in her personal life but who also wanted to engage in the world of action, to be a part of great events, to write about them, to do the work she had committed herself to, even when, or especially when, those events were tragic and heartbreaking. She loved being with exciting men who were also at the centre of things.⁴

The scene Martha described might just as easily have been a round trip to Berlin: ‘The Lancasters looked like enormous deadly black birds going off into the night,’ she wrote; ‘somehow they looked different when they came back. The planes carried from this field 117,000 lbs of high explosive and the crews flew all night to drop the load as ordered…. Here are the men who did it, with mussed hair and weary faces, dirty sweaters under their flying suits, sleep-bright eyes, making humble comradely little jokes and eating their saved-up chocolate bars.’

Berlin was all this and more.

Finally, after a spell of bad weather had grounded the Main Force, at ‘morning prayers’ on Thursday, 18 November ‘Bomber’ Harris announced that 835 bombers would be over Germany that night; 440 of them Lancasters and four Mosquitoes heading for Berlin almost exactly due west of Lincoln, while another 395 aircraft, mostly Halifaxes and Stirlings, would fly a diversionary raid on Mannheim and Ludwigshafen 300 miles away. The total effort for the night would be a new record for a non-1,000 raid night but only by one, with 884 aircraft (including 45 aircraft engaged on minor operations) being dispatched.

Though 106 Squadron was in the process of moving from Syerston to Metheringham, they were still on the battle order. On 11 November the squadron’s Lancasters were loaded with air and ground crew (plus a few hitch-hikers), suitcases, kitbags, bicycles and various impedimenta stashed in the fuselages for the squadron move. W.R.P. Perry, one of the pilots on the squadron, wrote:

‘Chocks away – and so are we. My faithful ZN-Z was fully laden.

‘Two friends of mine, Johnny Forsyth and Colin Storer were to formate on me and we proposed to announce our arrival with a gentle ‘beat-up’. Metheringham R/T call sign was ‘Coffee-stall’, so we intended also to broadcast a rendering (literally!) of the Java Jive. The new Station Commander was not amused – and said so! We had joined the Squadron in June. Our ‘own’ first aircraft had been ‘Admiral Dumbo (the flying elephant and it was!) and then a new ZN-Z Admiral Shyte-Awk2. Why the ‘Admiral’ prefix? At the time 106 was still the 5 Group designated ship attack squadron, and we had two Fleet Air Arm observer lieutenants attached to us. Every time we bombed a port they came along to identify what German naval ships were there. By November we were two-thirds through our first tour.

‘On the 12th of November the Squadron and Station started ‘working up’. We did an hour’s local flying, checking new landmarks, noting our proximity to Coningsby, Woodhall Spa, Bardney and Waddington. Flying continued: ammunition, bombs and fuel stocked up and then we were ready to go on November 18th. I was told that I was not flying that night, but a brand new Lancaster was at Waddington awaiting collection. I could ‘take a day off’ and collect same. Taking Les Blood my wireless-operator and Doug Cunnison, bomb-aimer, we duly arrived at ‘Waddo’ and it then being lunchtime arranged to pick up the aircraft in the afternoon. I had barely started my meal when I was called to the phone and my flight commander informed me that the aircraft was now required for ops that night and that I was to fly it. I protested that if I was on ops I wanted my own ‘Z’. It was to no avail. I could do the NFT (night flying test) on the way back ‘and be quick about it!’

‘At briefing at East Kirkby halfway between Spilsby and Coningsby in Lincolnshire there was a feeling of deep apprehension when the CO of 57 Squadron, Group Captain Taft announced, ‘Well, gentlemen, your target tonight is Whitebait.’ (On behalf of Harris Air Marshal Sir Robert Henry Magnus Spencer Saundby

KCB KBE MC DFC AFC

who became Deputy

AOC

in Chief in 1943, had selected 94 German towns which were ripe for carpet bombing. A keen fly fisherman, he gave codenames to each of them known as ‘Fish code’. For example Nuremberg was ‘Grayling’ and Berlin was ‘Whitebait’.)

‘For a few moments, ‘Geoff’ King the observer/bomb-aimer on George Lang’s crew wrote, ‘you could have heard a pin drop. Then, as our individual briefings commenced, the volume of noise increased – and so did our nervousness.’

‘King had enrolled in the RAF in April 1940 at Cambridge, firstly serving on ground staff as a flight mechanic until re-mustering and being posted onto his initial air-crew training in January 1942. The training of pilots and navigators usually took about two to two and a quarter years. An ‘Air Bomber’ (the correct term for bomb-aimer) was about eighteen months. Wireless-operators and air gunners took about nine months to one year and an engineer usually took from six to nine months. George Lang was a young Canadian, who had told his new crew at OTU (Operational Training Unit), ‘Well, you sons of bitches, you’ll be flying with me.’ And that’s how they met their skipper. ‘Lang loved the ladies; a devil in that respect and was as cool as a cucumber and remained in efficient overall control in all circumstances throughout the time we would fly together,’ says King. ‘Jock’ (Robert) Burns, the flight engineer, quiet as a mouse, a real staid Scotsman, was a man whose ability more than lived up to his reputation. Australian ‘Flash’ (‘Frank’) Green, mid-upper and part-time rear gunner, was quietest of all, always on top of his job and he helped to save our bacon early on in our operational experiences. They were all quiet, unless we were having a booze-up. But they were few and far between. Wireless-operator Vince Day, a little cockney, full of life, kept us in close contact with base at all times and fed us any relevant information. Tommy Thomas, a typical Welshman but very quiet, and Dickie Poulson, rear gunners, were always efficient and always warned of any likely danger.’⁵

The crew skippered by Flying Officer Anthony Francis Gobbie was even more cosmopolitan. Gobbie was born in London on 24 November 1919. His father is thought to have been of Italian extraction. For a time the family lived in New England and Tony Gobbie attended Harvard University for a year before returning to England in about July 1939 and he joined the RAF where he became operational during the ‘Battle of the Ruhr’. On 18 November he went to the briefing for the raid on Berlin, knowing that next morning the London Gazette would publish the citation for the award of his DFC. His navigator, Flying Officer Alfred Edward Walter Gardner, who hailed from Norbury, Surrey was also a recipient of the award of the DFC. Richard William Newcomb, the bomb-aimer who was from Olmué in the Marga Marga Province, Valparaíso Region in Chile, had unfortunately caught tonsillitis and missed some operations and had been assigned to the crew as the bomb-aimer. He had just been promoted to pilot officer and probably did not have time to buy his uniform.

Having by now survived two months of operations, George Lang’s crew had moved up from the fourth bombing wave to the second. The crew would be flying ‘lucky Charlie’ that had arrived on the squadron two weeks before.

‘C-Charlie became a true and trusted friend,’ wrote ‘Geoff’ King. ‘She was fitted with H2S and so my operational in-flight position now moved from the nose to the small (and very uncomfortable) bench seat beside Curly (Roy) Davis, who was quiet and a damn good navigator; 100 per cent competent and he would always keep them on course. My equipment was fixed to the right-hand side of his navigator’s table. The H2S proved invaluable on long trips: not only did it provide constant fixes that I could pass to Curly, it also let us map-read our way (literally) along the route thus enabling us to remain on track within the bomber stream and avoid the more heavily defended areas. Although we didn’t know it at the time, the 18th November was to be the first of ten trips we were to make to Berlin.’⁶

At Wickenby, about 10 miles north-east of Lincoln, close to a brace of villages with names such as Rand, Fulnetby and Holton-cum-Beckering, whose publicans, when the RAF arrived, must have thought their dreams had come true, ⁷ 19-year-old flight engineer Brian Edward George Soper on 12 Squadron was a little shocked. Not having done any ops, he was called into the Chief Flight Engineer’s office and told that he would be flying that night; not with his crew skippered by Warrant Officer Arthur Rew but with 30-year-old Flight Lieutenant Benjamin Edward McLaughlin

DFC

whose flight engineer had been recently commissioned and was away getting ‘kitted up’. McLaughlin had served in the Portsmouth and Palestine Police forces before the war. Later at the briefing, Soper received another jolt when he saw that the target was the ‘Big City’; ‘the first time for me of many,’ he wrote.

‘Old Man Luck’ was still pointing Warrant Officer Eric Jones’s crew on 49 Squadron in the correct direction. The thin, 6 feet 5 inches tall former builder’s clerk from Newent in Gloucestershire had not been to the ‘Big City’ since his ‘second dickey’ trip on 23/24 August 1943 and his crew had not been there at all.⁸ In the early days heavy bombers carried second pilots or ‘second dickies’ as they were known. The idea was not so much as a reserve but rather to give the newcomer to the squadron a chance to learn his job thoroughly before taking on a crew of his own. As time went on the number of ‘second dickey’ trips was reduced to a couple, just to give the ‘sprog driver’, the inexperienced pilot, an idea of the ‘score’.⁹

Jones’s crew had survived their first sortie over Germany with a trip to Nuremberg on 27 August and confidence had probably increased by .01 per cent, and the pattern of visits into Lincoln, operating whenever the moon and weather and sleeping permitted, had begun to take shape.

‘‘The very mention of the name Berlin,’ Eric said, ‘created a certain tension and apprehension amongst all those present at briefing. There were to be a further three raids on Berlin in that week and we participated in all of them. This raid on Berlin was my 14th and the crew’s twelfth, so we were almost halfway through our tour. Steve Stevenson, my bomb-aimer, when approaching the city on his bombing run said, Sorry Skipper, dummy run, go round again and I put the Lanc into a 360° turn to come round onto the same heading. Well, we nearly finished our tour there and then and, I might add, some other poor devil’s as well. When I had gone through 180° and facing the oncoming stream I was left in no doubt where the rest of the stream was. Lancs were visible all round and on a reciprocal heading. How we escaped a collision I will never know. Flying to the target one rarely saw another bomber unless they were being attacked by a fighter or coned by searchlights. To find the stream, fly on a reciprocal course. I said to Steve; Don’t you ever ask me to go round again. You make sure you line up correctly and we drop ’em first time. We did and that was the first and last time we went round again.

‘After Steve’s call for a dummy run over the target and turning to set course for home we hoped that no further problems lay ahead. Our wish was not granted. As the homeward trip progressed Ken Blackham my 26-year-old navigator, who was an ex-London policeman, started to calculate very high winds. At first he thought he had got it all wrong but eventually established that we were running into a 100 mph headwind and it was cutting our ground speed back to a comparative snail pace; I doubt if we were moving over the ground any quicker than 120 mph. This situation had Ron Harris, the 19-year-old engineer, doing rapid petrol calculations and as the homeward journey progressed it was obvious we were not going to make base and we might not even make England. Our luck lasted out and we crossed the coastline but it meant getting down onto the deck as quickly as possible and this turned out to be an American base.

‘That night the main Bomber Force was scattered all over Eastern England, obviously seriously disrupting any operational plans for the following night. Our American hosts, delighted at having a Lancaster in their midst, feted us with a cracking meal and excellent overnight accommodation (for what was left of the night). When we flew out the following morning we noticed that our night flying rations had been stolen from our Lanc, we suspected by American ground crew as some kind of souvenir. So who cared? They had looked after us so well.

‘There were to be a further three raids on Berlin in that week and we participated in all of them; then Berlin again the following week.’

All told, Eric Jones and his crew would take part in twelve raids on the German capital.

At Warboys in Huntingdonshire Bill Porter, a flight engineer on 156 Squadron in the Pathfinder Force, was down to fly ‘P-Peter’, the crew’s ‘old pal’ and favourite Lancaster.

‘‘We always had confidence in her and everything seemed right,’ wrote Porter. ‘Briefing informed us that the target for that night was the Big City – well named as it was thirty-three miles across: a long way, after dropping your bombs, to the relative safety of darker skies.

‘We drew our parachutes from the store. Printed on mine was "Squadron Leader Brian Duigan

DFC

". I knew he had finished his second tour of ops shortly after we started on ours. He was a tough Australian and a lucky one. I hoped his luck would be carried in his parachute. Was it some kind of omen? A lucky charm? It was a cheering thought.’

Pilot Officer John C. Adams, an Australian pilot serving on 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe just outside Lincoln, was down to fly ‘S-Sugar’, a brand-new Lancaster, one of twenty-one aircraft his squadron were contributing to the Berlin raid:

‘Our Lancasters had been loaded to an all up weight of 65,000lb. This consisted of enough fuel for us to stay airborne for nearly nine hours and our bomb load was the usual 4,000lb ‘cookie’ surrounded by nearly 6,000lb of incendiaries. We had been briefed to take the most direct route to the target – ‘straight in’ – which took us over Holland and north of most of the defended areas such as the Ruhr and the cities east of it. Our return track was to take us north after leaving the target. When we reached the Baltic we were to fly due west over Denmark.

‘We left the English coast near Mablethorpe and headed across the North Sea until we came to the coast of Holland. By this time we had climbed to 18,000 feet. After a short time over land we were again over water, the Zuider Zee. It was a very dark night and we were only just able to make out shorelines. There were no features on the ground which we could distinguish. By this time we had left the effective area of our ‘Gee’ navigation system so that the coast of the Zuider Zee was the last chance we had of fixing our position. From there to the target it would be a matter of flying by dead reckoning using the wind strength and direction obtained from the last position fix.

‘The weather had been fairly clear over England but as the flight progressed we found patches of cloud at around the height we were flying. I was flying the Lancaster for most of the time on instruments. There was very little to be seen by looking out. On clear nights I looked on the Pole Star as a good friend. It was very often nicely positioned just over my left wingtip on our way to the target. However, on this occasion there was too much cloud around for it to be visible.

‘We were well into Germany, somewhere to the north-west of Hanover, when I was startled by another aircraft which flashed in front of my windscreen. It was close enough for me to see that it was twin-engined and it seemed to be travelling very fast, about 100 mph faster than we were. It came into my field of vision from our left and disappeared off to the right a few metres in front of my right wingtip. I think that its course would have been at an angle of about sixty degrees to our own. It was close enough for me to see the flames from its engines and, whether I imagined it or not, I believed that I heard their roar as it was crossing in front of us. This close encounter happened so fast that ‘Tom’ Midgely, our flight engineer was the only other member of the crew who saw it. When the other members of the crew heard what had very nearly happened, there was some excited chatter over the intercom but it soon died down. I told the boys to forget about it. That one had missed us!

‘I wondered if the enemy pilot had another Lancaster on his radar and was hurrying to catch up with him or whether he had just been vectored into the bomber stream. To this day I wonder if that enemy pilot was aware that he had come within a split second of being part of a fireball in the sky.

‘When we arrived we found the city covered in cloud and because of the difficulty of accurately identifying the target area, the markers were quite scattered. We bombed on what appeared to be the main concentration of reds and greens. With the cloud cover, searchlights were not a problem but the defences put up a very heavy barrage of predicted flak. We had no chance of obtaining a picture of the aiming point; we just came back with a nice picture of cloud which was lit up by the fires under it and some lines of light which represented the target indicator flares. We saw no fighters and we managed to come through the flak barrage without damage although some bursts were fairly close.

‘Despite our confidence things quickly began to go wrong,’ wrote Bill Porter on ‘P-Peter’ on 156 Squadron. ‘The weather forecast was for clear skies over Germany but it proved to be 10/10ths cloud up to 12,000 feet and the forecast wind strength was way out. Either King, our navigator, didn’t spot it or Doug our wireless-operator didn’t pick up a broadcast of altered wind speed from Bomber Command HQ. Consequently, King said, Navigator to pilot: time to target is now.… He was rudely interrupted by a burst of anti-aircraft fire around us. Buffeted around in the hail of ack-ack fire and hearing the clangs of shrapnel hitting old P-Peter, I thought, We’re for it now. They’ve got us on the hook with their radar-predicted flak. But, thanks to George, our skipper, jinking the Lanc around we eventually got away. Once clear George said, Pilot to navigator: where was that?’

‘Brandenburg, skip, replied King.

‘From Brandenburg we were supposed to make a timed run to Berlin but, because of the wind strength, we were at the target already – ahead of everybody else! At the briefing we had been told the time over the target would be sixteen minutes with twenty-seven aircraft bombing every minute. If we went round again we would be late and the anti-aircraft guns would have us on our own again.

‘That option’s out, decided George, much to our relief although to my surprise he then said, Navigator: give me a reciprocal course back over Berlin. King did so and we swung round 180 degrees and back we went.¹⁰

‘By this time the target was well alight. Our planes, silhouetted against this and the searchlights on the thick cloud beneath us, looked like strange insects crawling over a vast table top. Those that spotted us going the wrong way must have thought us very foolish, or that we had a duff navigator aboard. But we dropped our bombs and left, inwardly congratulating ourselves that we had got away with it and that the worst was over. We had to fly south-west to pick up the main bomber stream heading home. Everything was remarkably quiet.

‘Christ! yelled George suddenly over the intercom as he sent P-Peter into a nose dive.

‘What the hell?

‘There was a deafening bang and we plummeted like a broken lift. My feet left the floor. I hung on to the canvas back of my seat and saw my parachute pack apparently floating in mid air. After what seemed like an age, when I felt sure we would hit the ground and that would be it, George pulled P-Peter out of the dive.

‘Everyone OK? he asked over the intercom. Doug, regaining his composure at his wireless-operator’s panel, ignored the question and said, All the internal fuselage lights have come on. We’ll look like a Christmas tree from outside. I want something to smash the bulbs.

‘Use the hammer in my tool kit, I indicated to Doug as I was busy checking the engine gauges.

‘All engines seem all right. Exhaust stub flames OK for colour, skip, I said.

‘That’s a relief, replied George.

‘Doug’s voice came again over the intercom. Just been down the back. Al’s heading this way, he said referring to our rear gunner, he’s hurt his hands.

‘It turned out that in the nose dive Al had thought we were going down for good and had taken off his gloves to open his turret doors to get his parachute in readiness for baling out. As he had held on to the metal to pull himself out, his hands had been severely frost-bitten and he had pulled all the skin off his palms and fingers. Doug installed him on the rest bed and he remained there holding his painful hands in the air for the rest of the trip home. Doug borrowed my hammer and hit the light bulbs. (He took a kind of fiendish pleasure in smashing up Air Ministry property, he said later.) He had tried to man the rear turret but it was useless and would not rotate at all. Fortunately, it was not needed for the trip back home was uneventful.’

As Flying Officer William H. Baker of Hull, the pilot of ‘V-Victor’ on 207 Squadron began his bombing run, his aircraft collided with the rear of ‘Z-Zebra’, the Lancaster skippered by Pilot Officer Frank Lees on 9 Squadron at Bardney. According to Baker’s 23-year-old navigator, Flight Sergeant Thomas Gedling of South Shields, they were ‘zigging’ and Lees’ plane was ‘zagging’!

Gedling’s fingers and feet became frostbitten before the Lancaster reached the target, but he wrapped a sweater round his hands and continued his work. Baker’s Lancaster suffered severe damage to the nose and port propellers and Flight Sergeant Jim Shimield his bomb-aimer fell to his death when the forward escape hatch was lost. On ‘Z-Zebra’ Sergeant Leonard Stanley Harris, the 20-year-old rear gunner, was killed. Lees, a policeman from Manchester, could not maintain height so he ordered his crew to abandon ‘Z-Zebra’. Flight Sergeant H. Fisher from Huddersfield and D.T. Cordon the navigator walked for five days before being arrested by a German policeman.

Bill Baker flew his crippled Lancaster over the target, but only then did the crew discover that the bomb-release gear was out of action. Baker turned for home on three engines. The wind that blew through the open nose of the bomber was bitterly cold at 20,000 feet and the crew were soon numbed by the elements. While his crew huddled for warmth in the fuselage, Baker was exposed to the full blast of the biting wind. By the time he landed back at Spilsby where his wife was an MT driver on the squadron, Baker had badly frostbitten fingers on both hands and he would never fly on operations again. ‘Tom’ Gedling also had badly frostbitten fingers, but continued his allotted task until the English coast was safely reached. For his courage and fortitude, which ‘contributed to the safe return of his aircraft’ he was awarded the DFM. Bill Baker was awarded an immediate DFC. ‘V-Victor’ was repaired and a few days later, on 22 December, Baker took the aircraft on a cross-country test flight. There was an engine fire which could not be extinguished and the crew was ordered to bail out. Three of Baker’s crew were killed.¹¹ The story of the collision broke when the flight engineer on Baker’s aircraft later ended up in Stalag Luft IVB, the same prison camp as five members of Lees’ crew.

Tony Gobbie’s crew on ‘I-Ink’ on 57 Squadron were shot down at Barnsdorf about 11 kilometres from Dresden. Alfred Gardner and Richard Newcomb were killed; the rest of the crew were taken prisoner. Two years after repatriation to England, in 1947 Tony Gobbie yet again crossed the Atlantic to America and migrated to Florida where he married Lorraine Albin in Broward County in 1953.¹²

None of the crews saw the ‘Big City’ through the thick cloud that carpeted Berlin and the winds proved to be far stronger than predicted. The bomber stream became scattered and bombing was carried out blindly. Tens of thousands of incendiaries and 2- and 4-ton HE (high-explosive) bombs were dropped within a period of barely thirty minutes. One of the Pathfinder aircraft dropped a yellow TI [Target Indicator] in error, confusing the Main Force bomb-aimers who had been instructed to bomb on the green TIs only.¹³ According to the post-raid report:

‘the TIs could be seen cascading to the ground and much of the effort undoubtedly fell on Berlin but the comparative failure of this operation resulted from unserviceable H2S sets – of which nineteen out of twenty-seven failed; an unexpectedly light wind en route delaying the backers-up so that for five or six minutes only one Green TI could be seen burning; and a smokescreen hampering visibility.’

Only one aircraft on the raid – a Mosquito – had been equipped with the new Mk III H2S on which so many hopes were pinned, but that set became unserviceable en route to the target. The pilot obeyed orders and returned to base. No serious damage was inflicted to major industrial premises, although considerable damage was caused by fire in residential suburbs.

‘We had our usual uneventful trip until the approach to the target,’ wrote ‘Geoff’ King on ‘C-Charlie’ on 57 Squadron. ‘This was from the north-west. It took an eternity, for we hardly seemed to be moving. Ahead of us lay what appeared to be an impenetrable screen of anti-aircraft fire from ground level to well over 20,000 feet, bursting in sequence every so many seconds at all levels. I thought, My God! How in hell’s name are we going to get through this lot? On our starboard side were two aircraft burning from stem to stern. As we neared our aiming point I concentrated on our bombing run and not on the hell that was going on outside the aircraft.

‘Bomb doors open. Left, left – steady, steady. As the illuminated cross on my Mk XIV bomb sight criss-crossed the green target markers, I pressed my bomb release. At that moment, you could feel the bomb load leave the bomb bay and immediately the aircraft wanted to rise. Bomb doors closed.

‘Below, one could see some of our own Lancasters and Halifaxes silhouetted against the inferno. I often wondered how many of these aircraft were hit by bombs from above. (In theory, most of them should not have been there, because each bomber wave had its own height and time of attack – essential with the number of aircraft taking part.) There were also enemy fighters flying with us. If the anti-aircraft fire eased, you knew that fighters were there in numbers but usually they ignored their own defences and pressed home their attacks on some unfortunate aircraft. It was just like a boiling cauldron below and fires were visible a hundred miles away from the target. I usually remained in the nose until we were clear of the target, keeping an extra eye open for fighters and other aircraft. This trip, with a loss of nine was to be one of the lowest losses on this target.

‘At about this time the German night fighters were becoming more visible and more efficient. (What we didn’t then realise was that some of them could home in on our H2S and precautionary warning systems.) Some were equipped with fixed upward-firing cannons (‘Schräge Musik’; ‘Jazz’ or ‘slanting’ or ‘Oblique Music’): devastating weapons that could cut a Lancaster apart (they could also be a bit hazardous for the fighter pilot, if he got too close to an exploding aircraft). Fortunately, we didn’t at that time realise the full potential of this type of fighter but it may explain a few of the little mysteries, such as damage and losses that we attributed to other causes or to bad luck.’

‘P-Peter’ on 156 Squadron joined the circuit over Warboys: ‘We were told to take our place in the queue and circle while waiting to land,’ wrote Bill Porter. ‘My heart sank. The petrol gauges were showing almost empty now. Ten minutes later we were still circling and I had to tell George of my worries.

‘Be safest to use the transfer cock and feed all engines from the starboard main tank – that’s got most in,’ I said.

‘OK, Bill, said George; go ahead.

‘I held my breath and crossed my fingers (not literally) as I turned over the feed controls to that tank. The engines continued to purr without faltering but even so, I was desperately worried about the petrol. Five more minutes went by and we were still circling.

‘I hope these gauges are accurate or else we’re in real trouble,’ I told ‘George’. That spurred him into action and he called control to tell them. They insisted we wait and continue circling.

‘We can’t,’ I said, ‘we’ve no juice!’

‘George called control again. We are short of petrol and we’re coming in.

‘He headed for the downwind leg of the runway watching for other planes landing as we were jumping the queue. I put the undercarriage down and checked the tyres with an Aldis lamp. We couldn’t check whether the tail wheel was there or not.

‘Bill, cut the throttles, said George. I did so and hung on for a rough landing but all was well and we taxied back to our pan, shut down the engines and all was quiet.

‘When I emerged from P-Peter the sergeant in charge of the ground crew was standing at the bottom of the ladder. All engines OK, ‘Chiefy’, I told him confidently.

‘Wanna bet? Come and have a look.

‘The side cowlings on both port engines had been ripped off and the outer one had about eight feet of the flexible alloy air intake branch hanging down. The propeller blade tips on both airscrews were bent.

‘Ignore my remark about the engines ‘Chiefy’, I said.’

Brian Soper would have worse trips later, but this first one was memorable: ‘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.’

Unfortunately, Flight Lieutenant McLaughlin, his pilot on this trip, was killed on 5 July 1944 during dual-instruction training on a Halifax on 1667 HCU at Sandtoft in Lincolnshire.

Pilot Officer John Adams on 50 Squadron had left the target area and the trip home to Skellingthorpe from then on was without incident:

‘When we reached our dispersal, we were greeted by the ground staff, who anxiously asked if all was well with their lovely new ‘S-Sugar’. We told them that she had performed perfectly except that ‘Monica’ was u/s. They said that it was not their worry – the radar people would have to fix that. We were discussing this when the crew bus arrived to pick us up. As we piled in, the ground crew were already starting to work on servicing ‘S’’.

At the debriefing 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.

At Warboys ‘P-Peter’s crew on 156 Squadron surveyed the damage to their Lancaster in the cold light of day:

‘The ground crew told us,’ wrote Bill Porter, ‘that on dipping the tanks there had been only thirty-five gallons of petrol left. I went round to the rear turret. Al had been lucky that it (and he) hadn’t been cut off entirely – even the ammunition belts were severed. He and our mid-upper gunner had been fortunate in that the nine flak holes in the fuselage were between their positions. The astrodome had been sliced off – another foot or two further forward and I’d have had it – so too would George. So, what exactly had happened? It seemed that we had collided with two aircraft: the one George saw to port when he had instinctively taken evasive action by shoving the control column forward and sending us into a dive but close enough for the other aircraft to wipe off the astrodome. In diving we had hit another aircraft but how the side cowlings came off remained a mystery. It was extraordinary that a plane had been directly underneath us. It dawned on us that it could well have been an enemy fighter with upward slanting guns just ready to have a go at us when we fell out of the sky on top of him! We could well have written him off. It was a cheering thought out of such a close run thing. It was then I thought about my parachute: had the tough Australian, Squadron Leader Duigan, been watching over me last night?’¹⁴

A mid-upper gunner on 44 (‘Rhodesia’) Squadron at Dunholme Lodge who was on his first trip to Berlin wrote later:

‘The night was a cold night with big patches of cloud. About five minutes after take-off, I saw ice was forming on the guns. As we left the cloud the ice disappeared, but I had to keep a watch-out for it the rest of the trip. As we reached the enemy coast, flak opened up and a stray piece hit the exhaust on the starboard inner engine, which burst into flames. From the mid-upper turret, I could see the flames shooting out for nearly two feet and lighting up the clouds around us. I reported to the skipper, who could also see the damage from his cabin.

‘The great danger was that the flame might reach the petrol tanks, but as it was not blowing that way and the engine was still working, we decided to carry on, the flight engineer keeping a careful watch on the temperature of the engine. No one made any suggestion of turning back.

‘We went on and made our bombing run. Cloud was thicker over the city, but this was to our advantage, because their searchlights couldn’t get through to us. Flames were still streaming from the exhaust, lighting up the clouds around us, and my turret in particular; I felt conspicuous but luckily, cloud kept the fighters down. We didn’t see one – only a couple of fighter flares on the way back. By the time we got to base, the exhaust was burning merrily, but we landed safely and were pretty glad to see the