Flights Into History E-Book

Ian McLachlan

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 422

Beschreibung

In this compelling sequel to Final Flights, aviation archaeologist Ian McLachlan has reconstructed the dramatic last flights of Second World War airmen, including the first Fortress to fall in combat from the USAAF's 447th Bomber Group; the final flight of an intruder Mosquito pursuing a German night fighter; the courage of a Lancaster pilot responsible for six lives aboard a burning aircraft; the story of a Spitfire's last flight and its heroic Belgian pilot. Exciting stories are also recounted of those whose misdirected courage saw them serve under the swastika. In reconstructing long-forgotten wartime events, often from buried wreckage, eyewitness accounts and contemporary documentation, aviation archaeologists can bring recognition to the individual flyers involved and shed new light on the air war over Britain and Europe during the Second World War. Even the discovery of small fragments can be significant. They provide evidence or prompt new research, revealing stories that offer a uniquely human dimension and reveal the hopes, fears, aspirations and pleasures of the aircrew involved. Ian McLachlan and other aviation archaeologists have now done them justice.

Leseprobe

FLIGHTS INTO HISTORY

FLIGHTS

INTO

HISTORY

FINAL MISSIONS RETOLD BY RESEARCH AND ARCHAEOLOGY

IAN MCLACHLAN

First published in 2007

This edition published 2010

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Ian McLachlan, 2007, 2010, 2013

The right of Ian McLachlan to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9594 1

Original typesetting by The History Press

To Sue.

Thanks for the continuing endurance.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

1.

Early Nights

2.

Swastika Stories

3.

Lest We Forget

4.

Lost Wings

5.

No Particular Courage

6.

First Men Down

7.

The Last Ride of the Valkyrie

8.

Stinger Stung

9.

Clobber College

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

As with my previous books, I am indebted to those researchers and historians who have generously shared the results of their labours. Their boundless dedication honours the crews involved in these flights into history, and these brave men represent countless others whose stories remain untold.

The list that follows is long and the support from all is much appreciated, but I am particularly grateful to Chris Gotts for making available the results of his research. I am sure he would have performed the author’s role admirably had he not become incapacitated by ill health. Bob Collis, a friend of many years’ standing, unstintingly provided a selection of stories from his extensive archives, and Peter Stanley generously supplied the story of his friend ‘Hadi’ Vogt.

These and other researchers remain modestly in the background, anxious only that the airmen whose lives they have touched are remembered. Direct input from some veterans is included, from Dickie Rook, John Bitzer and Harold Church among others. Harold Church had written a lightly camouflaged fictional account in which he replaced his real crew with characters. I felt he would more fully honour his fallen comrades if his account was written in the first person, and the unassuming Harold finally concurred. Lack of space here prevents me from supplying the details of each contributor to this book, but their kindness and generosity are hereby acknowledged with gratitude. Any errors that remain are my responsibility.

A.V. Cannings, Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society, Alan Hague, Alastair Goodrum, Albert Chilvers, Barbara Lockwood, Belgian Aviation Historical Association, Bernard Roper, British Aviation Archaeological Council, Chris Betts, Chris Goss, Chris Gotts, Chris Hearn, Craig A. Fuller, Cynrik De Decker, Dr Georg Konrad, Dan Engle, Danny Morris, David J. Stubley, David Wade, Dennis F. Tye, Derek James, Don W. Pashley, Donald Stowers, Dr Kurt Möser, East Anglian Aviation Research Group, East Anglian Daily Times, Eastern Daily Press, Eastern Evening News, Ed Beaty, Edward Daines, Ernest A. Osborne, Flypast Magazine, Geoff C. Jeffries, Gill Powell, Gordon McLachlan, Harold D. Church, Horst A. Munter, Hugh McGill, Iris H. Shuttleworth, Jack Edmonds, Jeff Carless, John A. Hey, John C. Bitzer, Joyce Carter, Julian Metcalfe, June R. Edwards, Kathleen Ellis, Ken Ellis, Kenneth McLachlan, Louise Metcalfe, Lowestoft Aviation Museum, Maggie Secker, Mark Brotherton, Martin W. Bowman, Merle C. Olmsted, Michel Doutreleau, Mike Bailey, Mike Butler, Mike Harris, Nigel Beckett, Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, Pat Everson, Pat Marks, Pat Ramm, Paul Thrower, Pauline Fisher, Pete Snowling, Peter J. Pfeiffer, Radio Norfolk, Radio Suffolk, Ray Corke, Ray Jones, Richard Rook, Robert Degrez, Robert Kemp, Roger A. Freeman, Russell George Nichols, S.E. Harvey, Shannyn Scarff, Simon Digweed, Simon Dunham, Stan Bishop, Steve Snelling, Stewart P. Evans, Theo Boiten, Tony North, T/Sergeant Mona Ferrell, Uwe Heintzer, Val Grimble.

I also thank the team at Sutton Publishing for their considerable perseverance. My ‘day job’, contracting as an Overseas Sourcing Consultant for e2v technologies, entailed much travelling and delayed the submission of the manuscript. The Sutton team deserve recognition not only for their professional skills but also for their forbearance: Jonathan Falconer, Julia Fenn, Nick Reynolds, Clare Jackson and Sarah Cook.

Finally, there would be no book without the support of my family. My daughter Bethan and son Rowan helped with practical research, and I am also grateful to their partners Tom and Eleanor for releasing them to do so! Jake and Maddie turned down the volume while we shared study space, and Jonny and Hannah supported the noise reduction. Above all, I owe my thanks to my wife Sue, whose unwavering support demonstrates her own recognition of the sacrifices made by young airmen before she was born. Their legacy is our freedom. Writing is not a dual pastime and she has had much to tolerate. She puts up with it because, while the obsession is mine, she knows as I do that these endeavours may bring some comfort to those families whose knowledge of what happened remains incomplete, and may perhaps fill some of the gaps in their understanding. It also proves to surviving veterans that subsequent generations have not forgotten, and never will, their flights into history.

Ian McLachlan, 2006

Suffolk, England

Preface

Countless flights took place during the Second World War. As well as combat missions, there were test flights, ferry flights, training sorties and passenger movements. Most passed virtually unnoticed, and the airmen concerned simply wrote more hours in their flight log-books. Some inevitably ended badly, and all too often that meant the end for the airmen aboard.

This book relates fourteen accounts of ‘Flights into History’ undertaken by British, American and German airmen. Most began as routine flights – if any form of aerial combat through flak-filled skies can ever be considered as such. Many ended dramatically. Some were never recorded by the participants; the closing entries in their log-books were made on their behalf, before their documents and personal belongings were returned to the next-of-kin. In the overall scheme of things these flights may not have been historically momentous, but when they went wrong the impact on the survivors was often emotionally and sometimes physically scarring. Also affected were the families of the fallen. Their lives were devastated, and the subsequent lack of information only exacerbated their misery. Our research into these flights answers some of their questions. We sympathise with those who grieved and pay tribute to the sons, fathers, uncles and brothers whose absence left a perpetual void.

Airmen said that any landing you could walk away from was a good one! Some of the stories in this book record machines that have disappeared for ever, with only tiny fragments or broken assemblies surviving. Archaeological evidence might be all that now remains of aircraft that once soared into the skies, lifting high the hopes and spirits of the young men who rode the heavens. I hope you will celebrate their memory with me.

CHAPTER ONE

Early Nights

A dominant image of RAF Bomber Command is of squadrons of aircraft disgorging a deluge of destruction into the burning heartland of Nazi Germany, of punishment brutally meted out and endured as technologically driven opponents battled for supremacy in the night skies. Radar was used to remove the nocturnal cloak hiding the bombers’ targets, but it also stripped away the shielding sanctuary of darkness from the aircraft. By 1944/5 heaven and earth had blended into hell as thousands perished in a battle of monstrous proportions. Britain’s iconic Avro Lancaster and its Handley Page stable-mate the Halifax, along with other types, wrought devastation on an evil regime whose populace paid in blood for the abrogation of their democracy. A struggle lasting almost six strenuous years had shortened developmental lead times, so that aircraft and equipment were introduced at a furious pace.

Following numerous disastrous attacks during daylight, the RAF’s heavy bombers had been driven into the darkness, but their equipment and methods were exposed as inadequate by the Butt Report of August 1941. A notable civil servant, D.M. Butt from the War Cabinet Secretariat, was tasked with studying and interpreting hundreds of photographs made available following advances in technology. The cameras fitted to the bombers were now synchronised to take pictures of the moment of impact, thus allowing independent target verification. Butt’s analysis was devastating for the senior officers of Bomber Command. Over 30 per cent of aircraft failed to bomb their primary objective. Of the remainder, only a third released their bombs within 5 miles of the prescribed aiming point and this figure tumbled to only 10 per cent when the targets were in the strongly fortified industrial regions of the Ruhr. In cloudy conditions reliance on navigation by dead reckoning was subject to error because the calculations were primarily based on predicted wind speed and direction over significant distances. Even on moonlit nights only 40 per cent of aircraft bombed within 5 miles of the objective, and moonless nights saw this figure fall to just 7 per cent.

The equipment may have been lacking, but the valour and determination of the airmen was not and this chapter recalls courage beyond measure when the vanguard of Britain’s bomber crews took their machines into combat. Knights errant, they championed the desire of the increasingly beleaguered British populace to strike back. At a crucial period Bomber Command’s achievements boosted the morale of people who had ‘taken it’ for long enough, and gave strength at a time when the war news reeked of potential defeat. Even if their exploits were later exposed as distorted by unintentional self-deception, the lessons learned in those early nights established an inventory of experience – but the cost was high.

During August 1940 the Battle of Britain was approaching a crescendo as the RAF’s fighter pilots struggled to hold the enemy at bay. Even so, the RAF commanders knew that, no matter how heroic, defensive defiance would not win the war. While exhausted Hurricane and Spitfire pilots slept, or tried to, their nocturnal bomber brethren retaliated on Britain’s behalf. Attacks on the accumulation of barges sheltering in the channel ports for the intended invasion of England were interspersed with deeper penetrations into the Reich’s industrial heartland.

Serving with 3 Group’s 115 Squadron at RAF Marham in Norfolk, Sergeant Pilot Ralph Edwards was fast becoming familiar with German geography. His log-book now listed Hamm, Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen and Gotha. For his sixth sortie, on 22 August 1940, a new name appeared when they were summoned to briefing: Mannheim. At this stage briefings lacked the strictures subsequently imposed on air-crew, as Ralph later recalled:

The target was displayed, with the suggested route, defended areas, other hazards, pinpoints, weather to be expected and the time advised to be on target and away from the area. Crews then went away to the crew rooms to plan their own routes and heights to and from the target, and their direction of attack. Some time needed to be spent in the target area to attempt to identify a target often obscured for a variety of reasons, including cloud, smog, fog, defences etc. . . .

For this operation Ralph would be flying as second pilot under the command of another sergeant, the seasoned Neil ‘Cookie’ Cook, who would be using the occasion to complete a veritable ‘Cook’s Tour’ of thirty sorties. In addition to Ralph, Cookie’s crew comprised three more sergeants: A. Overall as navigator, Nathan as wireless operator, and H.V. Watts as front gunner. Manning the rear turret was Pilot Officer G.D. Waterer, the flight gunnery leader, but in accordance with RAF custom he was subordinate to Cookie as skipper. Gathering in the crew room, the six air-crew discussed the opportunities offered by Mannheim. The obvious route lay over Belgium and Luxembourg to south-eastern Germany, where the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Neckar had undoubtedly influenced the foundation of this attractive city. Rivers aided navigation and Alan Overall’s task was made easier by Mannheim’s quadrate grid pattern. Unique in Germany, this square-patterned city plan dated from the seventeenth century but its grace and symmetry were appreciated by the crew only for the benefit it offered in target identification. Using the street plan and the town’s famous Art Nouveau water-tower in Friedrichsplatz as reference points, they hoped to locate railway bridges and industrial targets such as the marine diesel engine factory. Sixty-five years earlier Karl Benz had driven the world’s first automobile in Mannheim and he had left there an engineering legacy that continues to this day. There were numerous factories, including one producing U-boat engines, as well as other potential targets, including a paper works, a rubber factory and a plant producing celluloid – but first the air-crew had to get there.

Kitted out with parachutes, Mae Wests, helmets, gloves, goggles and so on, they eventually clambered into the transport taking them to their aircraft. Piled in with the assorted flying apparel were thermos flasks and sandwiches. It would be a long night. Bumping over the airfield’s turf, the truck soon approached the squat shape of their aircraft silhouetted against the stars. The premier heavy bomber of its period, the Vickers Armstrong Wellington would earn a reputation for toughness, and the type endured in combat throughout the war. Designed by Dr Barnes Wallis using his renowned geodetic fuselage structure, the Wellington was soon nicknamed ‘Wimpy’ after a famous cartoon-strip character, the portly J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye series. The Wimpy’s fabriccovered tubbiness concealed a toughness of character that enabled it to absorb punishment and still get home. Ralph’s machine, a Mark 1c, serial R3276, was a comparative youngster, having been with the squadron for only five weeks, during which time it was allocated aircraft letter B and wore the squadron code KO-. Ralph realised the Wimpy’s record owed much to the dedication of its ground-crew:

One recalls, as dusk fell after the activities of the day – the air-test; bombing up; refuelling; briefing etc. etc. – we, the air-crew, would be driven out to our dispersal point at the far corner of the grass airfield and the ground-crew would greet us cheerfully, assuring us that everything was OK, that such important points for morale had been attended to . . . The wing tanks contained those few extra gallons of precious 90-octane petrol for the de-rated Peggy 18s [Bristol Pegasus XVIII radial engines] which might be over the official fuel load . . . The leading edges of the wings had a good coating of grease to help prevent ice accretion . . . and there was an extra coat of anti-glow paint on the engine exhaust manifold rings on the leading edge of the cowling, which we fondly imagined dulled the brilliance of the fluorescent glow from the heat of the exhaust gases, [preventing us] from being spotted by night-fighters or tracked by infra-red equipment. . . . Another important factor was oxygen. The number of bottles carried was limited and, with six crew members all breathing in steadily, the oxygen could be used up much too quickly, especially as the type of face-mask worn was of a dense cloth material, which at the top allowed oxygen escape and wastage. The later, tighter-fitting rubber mask, with oxygen on demand, was very efficient.

The ground-crews had been busy as over fifty Wellingtons and Hampdens were readied for the night’s activities against six targets in the Ruhr and Rhineland. In addition, Blenheims raided enemy airfields in France and even the outmoded Fairey Battles were busy nipping at E-Boat bases. Some of the aircraft carried mines, which were to be sown in key shipping routes and on the approaches and entrances to ports and harbours. This activity was nicknamed ‘gardening’ and it made a significant contribution to enemy shipping losses, but that night the majority of aircraft carried high explosives, with Wellingtons shouldering the heaviest burden. Nestling sinisterly on board KO-B was the payload: 3,500lb of high explosive. Drawing in a final draught of summer-scented night air, Ralph climbed into the fuselage and was immediately assailed by the less comfortable aromas associated with his trade. The taut fabric stretched over the airframe had its own fragrance, which mingled with the scents of oil, fuel and rubber from their workshop in the air. Aboard KO-B, the crew prepared for flight. Settling into his seat, Cookie commenced the familiar routine but with no hint of complacency. Experience had taught him the importance of being methodical; their lives depended on it. Outside, the ground-crew had manually rotated each propeller to avoid an accumulation of oil causing the pistons to lock. As they stood clear, Cookie flicked the starter and booster coil switches as a mechanic primed the induction system. Needles flickered and danced, and dials began to glow as power flowed into the aircraft’s electrical system and the bomber stirred into life. Shuddering out of its slumbers with the first crack of combustion, the Wellington awoke and its engines were soon grumbling like lazy workers beginning their nightshift. Testing each engine for any hint of reluctance, Cookie took them up to the raucous tones of take-off boost; once satisfied, he throttled back and continued his checks. Brake pressure, fuel pressure, oil pressure, switches and tabs, trim and controls, gauges galore. Only when he had finished to his complete satisfaction did he release the brake lever on his control yoke and gun the aircraft into motion.

There were no concrete runways at Marham so KO-B trundled over the turf to her take-off position and awaited clearance. Green given, Cookie powered forward and Ralph felt the vibrations lessen as the mysteries of aerodynamics shifted the stress from the undercarriage to the wings and they eased off the grass, climbing purposefully into the clear night sky. In the crew room they had agreed on an attacking altitude between 10,000 and 13,000 feet. Now a gradual, fuel-conserving ascent was made, untroubled by cloud or course alterations, other than those to avoid areas of known flak concentrations. Alan Overall plotted their course and was undoubtedly pleased that the three-quarter moon and starlit skies gave excellent conditions for astro-navigation, while even the darkened landscape yielded signs. As Ralph explained: ‘A sweep of moonlight across a stretch of water could often provide a swift clue to one’s position deep over enemy territory, from lakes and rivers in relation to targets. The moon helped crews to keep a look-out for night-fighters . . . although one felt vulnerable alone on a bright night, the light tended to diffuse somewhat the stark intensity of searchlights.’

Nearing Mannheim, the crew became aware of searchlights seeking out the intruders, and bursting flak added brief stars of violence to the spectacle. Finding your aircraft ‘coned’ by searchlights was frightening and stomach-churning, as Ralph recalled:

I would like to mention that carrying out evasive action with a [Wellington] 1c, whilst carrying a full bomb-load, and fuel, generally in a fully laden condition, at a height of 10,000 feet plus, was a somewhat ‘fragile’ operation. To maintain height and airspeed whilst carrying out manoeuvres to avoid attack, especially when caught in searchlights, needed much concentration. When fully loaded, climbing at standard boost and revs was, above 7,500 feet, a case often of plus 200 feet, minus 100 feet on the climb and dive indicator.

Reducing the risk from such dangerous gyrations, Cookie now employed a trick of his own to deceive the defences. He deliberately de-synchronised the engines to confuse the listening devices he suspected were employed by the enemy. It was thought such apparatus could tune in more readily to harmonised engines and direct the guns accordingly. Both sides believed the other had extensively deployed sound locaters, but in reality neither side found the devices effective and few were in use by the end of 1940. At this time German flak was principally directed by searchlights with only limited guidance from sound locaters. The latter had a range of only 6,000 yards and it took some 20 seconds for the locater to pick up the engine noise, so it could only indicate where the aircraft had been, not where it was – and the bomber would have travelled about a mile in the meantime!

While the crew were de-synchronising the engines and dropping flares to illuminate their target, they remained within range of the enemy guns and the Wimpy sustained slight damage from shrapnel. Whether this affected their fuel situation is unclear but Ralph became anxious and felt they could ill afford any delay if they were to get home. In the past their fuel status had proved at times ‘somewhat critical’, especially in the face of the prevailing westerly head-winds.

Soon they located a suitable target and Ralph was relieved when their bombs tumbled into the darkness. Neil Cook had flown most of the time, with Ralph undertaking a series of mundane but essential activities, including pumping oil to the engines, releasing flares down the chute and making general observations from the astrodome. At times he had difficulty keeping his balance when Cookie’s evasive weaving became too energetic. Straight and level flight over the target area was far too dangerous, so the pilot would weave his aircraft vigorously from side to side. Ralph, grasping for the nearest hand-hold, noted how ‘the brilliance of the searchlights, seen at various angles when we were weaving, lanced through the interior like a floodlit, lattice-work, ice cold greenhouse’.

On leaving the target area it was customary for the second pilot to take over and Ralph duly made his way to the cockpit. Grasping the handgrip overhead, Cookie eased out of his seat and squeezed aft into the main cabin, where a rudimentary bunk offered a degree of comfort. Meanwhile Ralph followed the course given by Overall and KO-B cruised homewards, her journey untroubled. Crossing the North Sea, the aircraft gently descended on track towards Marham as dawn slipped silver fingers over the earth’s rim. Ahead a tracery of breaking waves sketched the dark outline of Norfolk’s landmass but such serenity still harboured dangers and the crew remained alert for enemy intruders. Making landfall at about 3,000 feet, they continued their descent and could be forgiven for thinking of bacon and eggs for breakfast. But it was not to be. Daylight filtering through the long Perspex window weakened the shadows on board as Alan Overall posted himself into the astrodome atop the central fuselage, partly for navigational purposes but primarily to provide an additional observer to look out for enemy aircraft. With its undercarriage and flaps down and the pilot concentrating on his approach, an aircraft was very vulnerable as it landed. Alan’s sudden yell over the intercom startled Ralph, but it was not an intruder. The navigator’s anxious alarm call announced that there was ‘black smoke coming from both engines!’ Simultaneously Ralph felt both motors begin ‘to surge and lose power and the instruments fluctuated wildly’.

Leaping from the bunk, Neil Cook came swiftly forward to the cockpit, gesticulating for Ralph to vacate the captain’s seat. As Ralph slid clear, Neil yelled at him to get Henry Watts out of his position – the front turret was no place to be. They were virtually out of fuel and, with no airfield immediately available, a crash-landing was inevitable. Tucking his intercom plug and oxygen tube into his harness and flying suit to prevent them snagging, Ralph dropped down the step from the second pilot’s position to the bomb-aimer’s compartment below the cockpit floor. The bomb-aimer’s feet extended aft beneath the flight deck when the bombsight was in use. Forward of this, perched on the Wimpy’s nose, was a Frazer Nash gunturret with twin .303in Browning machine-guns. There was little space in the turret, and 20-year-old Henry Watts, being small in stature, was well suited to the tight confines and bore well the rigours of his post. Unlocking the bulkhead door sealing off the front turret, then tugging open the small double doors for the turret itself, Ralph shouted for Henry to get out. Startled, Henry swung round, clearly wondering what was happening, and began to struggle free. But cramped and frozen, he needed assistance.

Suddenly the engines stopped. The two men were close to the forward exit and parachute storage, but there was no time to attach their parachutes and bale out. Hastening aft to their crash positions, Ralph encouraged the semi-frozen Watts with a good shove then turned and shut the bulkhead door; they would need all the impact resistance available. As they headed towards the flight deck, the eerie silence of their descent was nerve-wracking for Ralph: ‘The only sounds were the rush of air past the rapidly descending plane, the drumming of the fabric stretched tautly over the geodetics, and the swish of the wind-milling, three-bladed, non-feathering airscrews.’

Ralph managed to get on to the aluminium step leading up into the second pilot’s position. Grasping the cockpit coaming, he pulled himself up to look through the windscreen – and was just in time to see a row of trees directly ahead. In the last moments before impact, trees filled the windscreen, a green wall concealing brutally sharp branches and rugged trunks. The aircraft slammed into the foliage at about 100mph, and the absence of fuel now became a blessing as the Wellington was torn apart but did not catch fire. The tail section was ripped off with poor Waterer still inside. He was found upside-down in his severed turret some distance from the rest of the aircraft. Bursting through the branches, the rest of KO-B slammed to earth and skidded onwards amid a savagery of structural disintegration. When the wreck finally came to a halt, Neil Cook was trapped in his seat. He was suffering from severe head injuries, plus a fractured right femur. Henry Watts lay unconscious in the debris, bleeding badly, while Ralph had been catapulted out of the cabin and smacked heavily to earth, also bleeding. He too had broken his right femur and sustained head wounds, rendering him unaware of events even though he was struggling to get up. Alan Overall had a broken arm but was otherwise unharmed and mobile, as was Sergeant Nathan, whose injuries were fortunately only minor.

The crash had occurred at 05:15 on the B1149 Saxthorpe–Heydon road near the Norfolk village of Corpusty, but the isolated location and the early hour meant that no assistance appeared. Without the sound of engines overhead, and in the absence of an explosion, their brutal arrival had actually gone unnoticed in the community. Alan Overall finally decided to seek help and eventually found a farmhouse whose occupants alerted the authorities. In response, Norfolk Civil Defence officers ordered three ambulances to the scene but some time elapsed before they located the crash. Tragically they arrived too late for Henry Watts the young gunner had bled to death. Waterer was still alive in his rear turret but grievously wounded with major head and facial injuries plus a fractured tibia and fibula. Rendering emergency assistance, the medical personnel then dispatched the wounded in the Cromer Civil Defence ambulance to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in Norwich. Some official records state that there were only two injured airmen and that Ralph Edwards was unharmed. In fact Ralph was badly hurt but remembered nothing until he regained his senses in the caring hands of medical staff at the hospital.

All five survivors were in one ward and ‘were looked after wonderfully well by the nursing staff’. Overhead the air war continued and from his hospital bed Ralph listened as ‘the airraid sirens were constantly sounding. One at the Caley [chocolate] factory was particularly noisy.’ On one occasion he heard bombs exploding, and later learned that two German aircrew, perhaps responsible for this commotion, were also in the hospital but segregated in another ward. Elsewhere the air raids had been intense and after two weeks the RAF beds were earmarked for casualties from London, so Cookie and his crew were moved by RAF ambulance to the new RAF hospital at Ely. There Ralph spent some months, first in Thomas splints and then in plaster of Paris. During this time he celebrated his 20th birthday and was honoured to meet the king and queen when they paid an official visit. Shortly afterwards, he and Cookie were transferred to a rehabilitation centre in Blackpool for recuperation and physiotherapy. Cookie had healed faster than Ralph and, unwilling to rest from operations, he returned to Marham at the end of May 1941. Some six weeks later, during an attack on Duisberg on the night of 15/16 July, the newly promoted Flight Sergeant Cook and his crew fell to the guns of Hauptmann Werner Streib of 1/NJG.1 – there were no survivors.

Ralph never again saw any of the others from the crash at Corpusty but later inherited a crew of his own and completed his tour, despite having a close encounter with a night-fighter and another less severe crash-landing:

Returning from a Nuremberg ‘op’ on the night of 12/13 October 1941, whilst in a searchlight cone at 4000 feet in the Frankfurt area . . . we had a short combat with a nightfighter. Some mild weaving of the aircraft was in progress when suddenly streams of sparkling tracer came streaking by, on and through the starboard side of the aircraft from the rear . . . The rear gunner Sergeant Lester was alert and shouted, ‘Fighter! Fighter!’ and blazed away immediately with his twin Browning machine-guns. There was a pungent smell of burnt cordite throughout the aircraft. Then came a yell from the second pilot, on his first op, P/O Little, who was at the astrodome. He had been hit . . . after swift evasive action, we lost both the searchlights and the fighter. As the starboard engine was vibrating, I throttled it back a little and we stooged slowly homeward.

So, we had the second pilot wounded and out of action, one engine damaged and the hydraulic system out of action. I had to gain the attention of Bob, the navigator, for a course to steer because he was with Ken, the wireless operator, back in the cabin making the second pilot as comfortable as possible. We flew back to base. It was a dark night and, after circling around waiting for other squadron aircraft to land, [we] carried out the procedure to prepare for a belly landing. We had tried to manually pump the wheels down, for a long time, but without success. I prepared to carry out an approach for a belly landing on the dark side away from the flare path so as not to obstruct any other aircraft landing. With the crew in crash-landing positions, . . . the rear turret was rotated manually . . . to the side, to allow easy egress. The astrodome was unclipped and pulled down inside and the handle for the pilot’s escape hatch was ready for pulling down to open. We came in for landing. It was very dark. With a harsh, grating roar and bumping friction, we skidded along in the darkness, finally coming to rest in a cloud of smoke and steam. The port airscrew was hurled, bent and twisted, some distance away but otherwise there were no injuries. The fire engines and ambulances were promptly on the scene, but there was no fire. The crew were rapidly out of the exits, and the wounded second pilot lifted out to the ambulance.

Later commissioned, Ralph became an instructor on Wellingtons and participated in the first 1000-bomber raid on Cologne on 30/31 May 1942. His instructional duties continued until December 1943, when he secured a posting to 7 Pathfinder Squadron flying Lancasters from Oakington near Cambridge. Here he completed another operational tour (including the disastrous raid on Nuremburg on 30/31 March 1944 when ninety-five Lancasters and Halifaxes were lost). In June 1944, now a flight lieutenant, Ralph was awarded the DSO for being ‘a highly skilled and fearless captain and pilot whose fine fighting qualities have been reflected in the efficiency and determination of his crews’. During September 1944 he was posted to Transport Command, and retired from the RAF as a squadron leader in 1958. Ralph Edwards had experienced and survived the transformation of Bomber Command from puny pinpricking nuisance raids to the massive attacks that contributed so much to the defeat of Hitler’s Reich. Sadly Ralph has passed away since relating this account.

Another early nights adventurer was Pilot Officer David Penman from 44 Squadron, part of 5 Group and based at Waddington in Lincolnshire. David had enlisted in 1937 and fledged on that ubiquitous biplane trainer, the de Havilland Tiger Moth. In those days many of the front-line aircraft were also biplanes and David’s career took him on to the graceful Hawker series of Audax and Hart light bombers. Completing his tuition, he reached 44 Squadron in October 1938 during the political turmoil of the Munich Crisis, when war seemed imminent. Conflict was narrowly averted when Britain and France failed to support Czechoslovakia and allowed Hitler to occupy part of that unhappy nation. Had war broken out, the RAF would have been woefully ill-prepared but 44 Squadron, having recently re-equipped with the Bristol Blenheim Mk 1, had at least gone beyond the use of open cockpit biplanes. The origins of the Blenheim, a twin-engined, medium day bomber, stemmed from the privateventure Bristol 142 ‘Britain First’ executive aircraft sponsored by Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail. Embarrassingly for the RAF, in 1935 the newspaper baron’s personal transport proved faster than contemporary front-line fighters and the Type 142 spurred the development of a bomber derivative. Advanced and innovative on its introduction, the Blenheim design was soon outmoded by the advent of war but the heroism of its air-crews and the feats they performed are remembered with pride. David Penman was not enamoured of the type – ‘serviceability was not good and the Blenheim had a bad accident record’ – but relief of a sort was at hand when 44 Squadron re-equipped with the Handley Page Hampden. David related: ‘We were glad to receive the first of our Hampdens in February 1939. The Hampden, though not quite as fast as the Blenheim, was a much better aircraft all round.’

Designed, like the Wellington, to Air Ministry specification B9/32, the Hampden entered service later than its companion but was likewise intended to perform primarily during daylight. A very narrow forward crew compartment, from which extended a slender fuselage tapering back to a twin-tailed configuration, soon saw it nicknamed the ‘Flying Panhandle’. If anything, the Hampden was even less suited for its role than the Wellington. Lacking any power-operated turrets, it was poorly defended and soon transferred to nocturnal activities. David Penman was more supportive of this type:

It was a single pilot aircraft and no dual could be given. To me it was a delightful aircraft to fly, though others might not agree; it had a large roomy cockpit, which offered an excellent view. The controls were light and responsive, and with large flaps and also leading edge slots, it handled well at low speeds. However, it could swing badly on takeoff, had a very poor single-engine performance and could get into a stabilized yaw which caused many accidents . . .

The ‘stabilized yaw’ was a notorious feature of the Hampden that derived from a design flaw. If the controls were not smoothly coordinated in a turn, the aircraft would side-slip. In some situations the forward fuselage then blocked airflow over the rudders, rendering them ineffective. Given adequate height (and sometimes the use of throttles), a pilot could recover but at low altitude there was never enough time to retrieve the situation. Pilots were also warned to avoid flat turns, for the same reason. Despite the aircraft’s reputation, David Penman was comfortable in his cockpit:

The Pegasus engines were very reliable and each consumed around 70 gallons per hour – total fuel load, 656 gallons. I cannot recall any shortage of aircraft once we were fully equipped and they were replaced quickly. We were short of crews, having two flights each with six crews, and replacements were slow to arrive. The very high accident rate at the Hampden Operational Training Unit did not help. For pilots just out of training school with little over 150 hours on Tigers and Oxfords, it would not have been easy. I was lucky to have 450 flying hours, 75 of them on the Hampden, when the war started. When we set out for Berlin on 25 September 1940, I had over 600 hours, including 190 hours on the Hampden, 52 of them at night.

Berlin became the last resting-place for many a bomber during the years of increasingly savage struggle, while the destruction they wrought reduced great swathes of the city to rubble and thousands perished. Residents of the city had an unpleasant foretaste of this during the night of 23/24 September 1940 when Bomber Command, untypically for the times, focused its attention on the German capital. A mixed force of 129 aircraft, Wellingtons, Hampdens and Whitleys, optimistically sought eighteen precision industrial and logistical targets. Three aircraft failed to return from this skirmish but 112 claimed positive bombing results, despite the difficult conditions caused by ground mist and burgeoning enemy defences.

Returning to more disparate operations, the RAF continued to pinprick Berlin and David Penman found his crew tasked for a small raid on the city on 25 September. On 11 September he had been allocated Hampden X2916, coded KM-D. It was a brand new machine, although as David reflected wryly, ‘very few survived long enough to become old’. Would his be an exception? His crew that night were all sergeants. His navigator was Frank Stott, who had qualified as a pilot but was assigned as a navigator pending a crew of his own. Sergeant Duffy, a regular on the Penman crew, took care of the radio communications while defending the Hampden was the primary task of air-gunner Sergeant Hird, who was flying only his fifth operation with Penman as pilot.

Berlin was at the limit of their operational capabilities, and KM-D, fully laden with fuel and four 500lb high explosive bombs, weighed heavily on its undercarriage as it taxied out. Waddington would not be blessed with concrete runways for some months yet, and there was always the risk that a fully laden aircraft would become bogged down. Fortunately KM-D reached the take-off point unhindered and commenced final take-off preparations. To everyone’s relief the take-off was similarly uneventful and the ensuing climb became a laborious process. They were aligned on a regular aerial corridor taking them eastwards until they could identify Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast. The town provided a useful navigational fix before their aircraft slipped across the featureless North Sea, toiling slowly upwards at some 120mph towards 10,000 feet. Frank Stott now relied on dead reckoning and his sextant skills for star shots. Their track was simply a straight line for Berlin and Frank did his best to avoid any deviation but the vagaries of wind speed and direction always made the navigator’s job more difficult. Supporting Frank, Sergeant Duffy struggled to get wireless fixes and loop bearings from British radio stations but David later remarked that these proved ‘very difficult to get’. The Hampden droned uncertainly onwards. The crew were at least blessed with a peaceful sea crossing and an undisturbed track in over the enemy coast. Some time later David saw heavy flak filling the sky ahead and called Frank to discuss their position. He was worried. A few rough calculations using airspeed and elapsed time told him it could not be Berlin. Supporting this assessment was the area of flak which, although dense, was not as widespread as that experienced over Berlin. Gauging the area of gun flashes and supporting searchlights, plus what little they could determine of the city’s outlines, the crew concluded they were over Magdeburg, south-west of their objective. Turning north-east, they set course for Berlin, which, if this was Magdeburg, would be some 70 miles away. The twin Pegasus engines pounded away the miles but no target appeared and it became unhappily apparent that they were lost. Checking his fuel levels, David knew they were approaching the limit of their endurance and began searching for a target of opportunity. Below, in the moonlight, the straight lines of an autobahn appeared, ‘so four 500lb bombs went down on it’. Still lost, they established a course that would, they hoped, bring them in to some recognisable part of the English coast, from where they could get a bearing for Waddington. To the east, the first hint of dawn lightened the horizon and the blackness beneath slowly faded to a greyish hue. The strengthening light eventually revealed nothing to help identify their exact location as a solid blanket of cloud covered the countryside. Disconcertingly, Frank Stott now guessed they were somewhere near Heligoland, a notorious place for the RAF. During 1939 Luftwaffe fighters inflicted heavy casualties in this area when the RAF persisted with daylight operations. Severe losses had finally demonstrated the vulnerability of unescorted daylight raids, and as dawn broke David sensibly concluded that it was ‘not a good place to be’ and sacrificed fuel for speed and distance. Further calculations tried to establish how far it was home, and whether they could make it, judging by their rate of consumption and their fuel reserves. There was no doubt about it: they were in serious trouble. With luck, they might just make the eastern extremity of England around Cromer on the Norfolk coast. With luck.

As the danger of interception receded, so their most pressing enemies became weight and distance. David instructed his crew to discard any surplus equipment. Everything not nailed down, including all their machine-guns and ammunition, splashed into the North Sea. Eking out their fuel, David throttled back as far as possible and with both Pegasus engines puttering on low revs he trimmed the bomber for maximum endurance and a gradual descent. Soon their shadow danced from cloud tops ahead of them, racing like a puppy in the park. Then, kissing the cloud tops, the Hampden finally married its ethereal image and disappeared. Flying on instruments alone, David kept the artificial horizon level but allowed the aircraft symbol on the indicator to stay just beneath the line on the instrument’s face. Gently coasting the air-currents within the cloud, the aircraft rose and fell. The crew’s anxiety increased – would land be visible when they broke clear? At last the clouds grew thinner and the aircraft shed the final, vaporous tendrils to emerge over a sullen seascape unendorsed by even a hint of land. Peering down, David took little solace from the relatively calm sea conditions that might assist if they ditched, but he ordered the crew to prepare. The fuel gauges now flickered to zero and the empty vista ahead offered no hope. Then – was it just imagination? The horizon surely had a density suggesting land. But none appeared and their hopes now felt as empty as the fuel tanks. Again the horizon thickened. Land? Yes – no – maybe – please God. YES. Looming out of the mist was a coastline, all sandy curves with beautiful greenery beyond. They all searched unsuccessfully for a recognisable feature but could only assume it was Norfolk – somewhere. Suddenly the aircraft shuddered as first one engine backfired, then the other. The final drops of fuel swirling in the tanks caused their loyal Pegasus engines to splutter and cough like old men with the day’s first fag. Each motor was fed from its own tanks with no capability for transferring – not that it mattered, since all the gauges indicated a firm and final zero.

Any hopes of a crash-landing on one of Norfolk’s firm flat beaches were soon dispelled. The tide was in and the little strips of soft sand were unsuitable even without the dunes, cliffs and plethora of protruding anti-invasion poles, now clearly visible. Worse still, this deterrent extended inland for field upon field, robbing them of another option. They were now below 1,000 feet as both engines, sucking vapour, lost power. Any opportunity for parachuting after reaching the shoreline had disappeared as they lost height and David ordered the crew to adopt their crash positions. He also felt the aircraft offered its pilot only a poor chance of survival if he baled out – the likelihood was that he would strike the tail unit. Searching a landscape spiked with countless poles, David knew he had to choose a smaller, unguarded field where there might be a slim chance of squeezing in. Picking the best available, he opted for a wheels-down landing because he wanted to save his aircraft if humanly possible. Selecting undercarriage down, he was gratified to see the green lamps come on, and with the engines still spluttering he chose a flap setting that would stretch his glide when they quit, as they inevitably would. Holding his shallow approach, he nursed the Hampden towards the nearest boundary hedge of the chosen field. His mind now juggled the options available and he decided to risk overshooting the first hedge on the simple basis that it would be more expedient ‘to overshoot and hit the far hedge slowly than undershoot and hit the first hedge hard’. Either way, the field looked uncomfortably tiny and, closer now, distinctly uneven. A lack of waves on the shoreline had indicated very little wind so he made allowances as the bomber settled. However, having been aloft so long, his machine now seemed reluctant to touch down. Empty tanks and the lightened airframe caused it to float high over the first hedge, which, he now realised, had concealed a dip on the far side. Precious distance disappeared before X2916 touched down. David braked hard. The wheels locked but his speed barely dissipated. Perhaps the early morning dew on the meadow was causing the bomber to aquaplane? Still travelling fast, they reached a mound that divided one field from the next and bounced over, momentarily airborne, before crunching down hard on the undercarriage. David did his best to level the wings in time but the impact was so severe that one wheel sheered away and the bomber slewed crazily round on the other, dragging its wing and skidding sideways in a flurry of scattered soil and grass. Sliding askew for a little distance, the Hampden finally came to rest looking very much the worse for wear.

In the seconds of silence that followed, the crew realised that their perilous homecoming was complete, after a flight that had lasted a gruelling 9 hours and 20 minutes. Relief washed over David as he unclipped his harness and clambered from the cockpit down on to the sweet-scented meadow. Every blade of grass looked beautiful. Several soldiers were hurrying towards the stricken bomber as the grateful but exhausted airmen emerged to find out precisely where they were. They had landed close to the church of St Mary in the Norfolk village of Northrepps – perhaps there was a touch of divine intervention in their survival.

Those that wanted lit cigarettes – there was no likelihood of spilt gasoline – and then gazed around as more and more people arrived until a welcoming throng surrounded David’s decidedly bent bomber. He was taken to a local homestead where a kindly lady provided breakfast and then the luxury of a bed for the weary airman. Others of the crew received similar hospitality but their RAF masters were less understanding and David was woken ‘long before I wanted to be’ and fetched back to Waddington by an RAF vehicle. There was no tea and sympathy there. Instead he found himself being berated by the station commander, who was aggrieved about the misshapen aircraft and felt that David ‘should have found an aerodrome to land on’. David’s protestations regarding their fuel status were ignored, although he was certain there was no fuel in the tanks when he touched down and ‘even a minute more would have meant no engines and no choice’. He felt equally sure that a belly-landing would have meant the aircraft slithering into the mound they had bounced over and the crew would have been injured – or worse – in the resultant crushing of the fuselage. However, after this admonishment David heard no more about the incident, and the Hampden was recovered and repaired. It continued in service until lost with all its crew during a night training exercise on 11 August 1941.

Three nights after his Northrepps mishap, David returned to duty on a sortie to Stuttgart. Airborne for 6 hours 55 minutes, he successfully diverted to North Coates aerodrome to land when adverse weather closed Waddington. The aircraft’s limited endurance continued to handicap Hampden operations. One of David’s friends, Pilot Officer David Romans, ditched twice in the space of a week owing to lack of fuel, first off Salthouse, then off Lowestoft. Meanwhile, on another operation Frank Stott made amends for his earlier navigational mishap by getting the Penman crew to Berlin and safely back to Waddington 7 hours 45 minutes later. This time they deposited four 500lb bombs on the city. To extend the Hampden’s range, Handley Page devised additional fuel tanks that were attached to the under-wing bomb racks and provided an extra 140 gallons. As one of the squadron’s most experienced pilots, David undertook several raids using the long-range tanks, which would provide ‘a story in themselves’, including one sortie to Bordeaux carrying a 1,500lb magnetic mine. ‘The take-off was not easy and we just cleared the hedge. Climb was 120mph which appeared to be just above the stall. We flew level at 2,000 feet for 2 hours at 120mph to lighten the load before climbing higher.’ On another sortie to Berlin, again using the longrange tanks, he had all the fuel tanks switched on for take-off but, ‘having reached 2,000 feet, there was the nerve-wracking business of having the wireless operator switch off the port main fuel cock, wait a while, then the starboard. There was no way of knowing what fuel was left in the overload tanks and all we could do was fly for around 1 hour 40 minutes, then switch on the mains again, then switch off the overloads and hope there was no air lock. The wireless operator’s control of the overload consisted of two rings with a wire from them to the cocks on the tanks on the wing.’