Lancaster: Reaping the Whirlwind E-Book

Martin W. Bowman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 733

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Detailing the Lancaster's history from 1942–45, this study brings everything together to tell a concise history of the world's most famous aircraft of all time and undoubtedly the finest bomber of the Second World War. A superlative and unique colour section of over fifty contemporary photographs of the Lancaster is featured, while the text is complemented by over 150 rare and seldom seen black and white images. Well researched and expertly written, this account is a must read to those interested in the Lancaster and aviation history in general. The book also includes many unique and incredible eyewitness accounts of the raids by Lancaster crews, making Lancaster: Reaping the Whirlwind both a gripping and fascinating read.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am particularly grateful to Dick Starkey; ‘Johnny’ Johnston and Eric Jones DFC; Derek Thomas, Secretary of 106 Squadron Association; Nigel McTeer; Alan Parr, Secretary of 49 Squadron Association; Philip Swan, who edited and annotated Campbell Muirhead’s Diary of a Bomb Aimer: Training in America and Flying with 12 Squadron in WWII; and my friend and colleague Theo Boiten, with whom I have collaborated on several books, who provided all of the information on the Nachtjagd or German night-fighter forces contained herein. Aviation historians everywhere owe a deep sense of gratitude to his and all the other valuable sources of reference; in particular, those by the incomparable W.R. ‘Bill’ Chorley, Harry Holmes, Martin Middlebrook, Chris Everitt and Oliver Clutton-Brock.

Lancaster and poem

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Milestones

1

Not a Cloud in the Sky

2

The Shining Sword

3

Old Man Luck

4

Chop City

5

Round-the-Clock

6

‘This is war and somebody’s got to die!’

7

The Means of Victory

8

Lancaster Legacy

Appendix 1

Bomber Command Lancaster Crew Victoria Cross Recipients

Appendix 2

Aircraft Sorties and Casualties 3 September 1939–7/8 May 1945

Appendix 3

Summary of Production

Appendix 4

Lancaster I Specifications

Appendix 5

Halifax/Lancaster Comparison at the End of 1943

Appendix 6

Comparative Lancaster and Halifax Squadrons

Appendix 7

Lancaster Squadrons at Peak Strength 1 August 1944

Appendix 8

Lancaster Squadrons formed late 1944–45

Plates

Copyright

MILESTONES

May 1936

Specification P.13/36 for a twin-engined bomber results in the Vulture-engined Avro Manchester designed by Roy Chadwick and his team.

July 1937

Manchester is ordered into production to specification.

July 1939

Manchester flies for the first time.

September 1939

Manchester III project with four Merlins first mooted.

Mid-1940

Avro is authorised to go ahead with the construction of a Manchester III prototype. The modified wing of increased span and the two extra engines results in a change of name from Manchester to Lancaster.

November 1940

Manchester enters squadron service with 5 Group, Bomber Command.

1941

9 January

First Avro 683 Lancaster (BT308) flies as the Manchester III and is originally fitted with triple fins.

13 May

Second prototype Lancaster (DG595) flies.

31 October

First true production Lancaster I (L7527) fitted with Merlin XX engines of 1,280hp flies.

Lancaster Is continue in production until 1946.

21 December

Lancaster II prototype powered by American Packard-built Merlin engines flies.

1942

Early 1942

Deliveries of the first Lancaster Is to 44 Squadron at Waddington, followed by 97 Squadron at Woodhall Spa, begin.

3/4 March

Four aircraft of 44 Squadron fly the first Lancaster operation of the war with a mine-laying sortie in the Heligoland Bight.

10/11 March

Two aircraft of 44 Squadron make the first Lancaster night operation with a raid on Essen.

10/11 April

Lancasters drop the first 8,000lb bomb on Essen.

17 April

Twelve aircraft of 44 and 97 Squadrons, led by S/L J.D. Nettleton, carry out a low-level daylight attack on the MAN diesel engine plant at Augsburg. Nettleton is awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the raid.

25/26 June

Last raid is flown operationally by Manchesters, after which the type is withdrawn from operations.

31 July/1 August

One hundred-plus Lancasters take part in a raid for the first time when Düsseldorf is bombed.

18/19 August

Lancasters of 83 Squadron take part in the first operation by the Pathfinder Force, with a raid on Flensburg.

17 October

Over 90 Lancaster Is of 5 Group bomb the Schneider Works at Le Creusot, a trip which involves up to ten hours’ flying.

Only one aircraft is lost.

1943

11/12 January

Two initial sorties by Mk.IIs against Essen prove abortive as they cannot reach the required operational ceiling, but five nights later the type goes into action successfully against Berlin.

4/5 February

Lancaster IIs are given an Italian target – Turin.

Spring

115 Squadron at East Wretham, Norfolk, in 3 Group and formerly flying Wellingtons, becomes first Lancaster II squadron.

March

Eighteen squadrons using Lancaster Is.

16/17 May

Eighteen Lancasters of 617 Squadron carry out a low-level attack on the Ruhr Dams. Eight aircraft are lost.

W/C Gibson is awarded the VC.

23/24 May

Greatest non-1,000 raid of the war with 826 aircraft, including 343 Lancasters, on Dortmund.

20 June

Friedrichshafen bombed by 57 and 97 Squadrons, the Lancasters flying on to North Africa to refuel.

July

One hundred and thirty-two tons of bombs are dropped for every Lancaster lost on operations. This compares with only 56 tons for each Halifax lost and 41 for each Stirling.

15/16 September

Two Lancasters of 617 Squadron drop the first 12,000lb bombs during the disastrous low-level raid on the Dortmund-Ems Canal.

11 November

First Lancaster to reach a civil register when G-AGJI is registered to BOAC to evaluate for airline use, which leads to the development of the Lancastrian, a 9–12 seat airliner.

1944

15/16 February

More than 500 Lancasters take part in a raid for the first time when Berlin is bombed.

8 June

First deep penetration 12,000lb ‘Tallboy’ bombs are dropped by 19 Lancasters of 617 Squadron on the tunnel at Saumur.

June

Lancasters fly daylight tactical operations in support of the invasion forces around Caen in the days immediately following D-Day.

September

Last-ever batch of Lancasters (11 Lancaster IIIs) produced at Yeadon in West Yorkshire; the last delivered in October 1945. Most are used for ASR (Air/Sea Rescue) or for GR (General Reconnaissance).

12 November

Eighteen Lancasters of 617 Squadron and 13 of 9 Squadron drop 12,000lb ‘Tallboy’ bombs to capsize the 45,000-ton battleship Tirpitz in Tromsø fjord in Norway.

1945

17 January

Prototype Lancastrian (G-AGLF) flies and is delivered from Woodford to BOAC at Croydon on 18 February 1945. BOAC uses Lancastrians on long-range routes until September 1950.

March

No fewer than 56 squadrons of Lancasters operate on first-line duty (745 operational Lancasters and 296 more in OTUs).

14 March

First 22,000lb ‘Grand Slam’ bomb to be dropped, on the Bielefeld Viaduct, by a 617 Squadron Lancaster.

21 March

Fifty-six squadrons and 745 Lancasters on strength with 296 in OCUs.

25 April

Lancasters fly their last daylight operation of the war with a raid on Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden.

25/26 April

Lancasters fly their final night raid of the war with an attack on an oil target at Vallø, Norway.

October

Statistics indicate that the total tonnage of high-explosive (HE) bombs dropped on primary targets by 6,500 of the 7,366 Lancasters built reached 608,612 in 156,192 sorties. Packed together, the bombs could fill a goods train 345 miles long. Lancasters accounted for two-thirds of the total tonnage dropped by the whole of Bomber Command from March 1942–May 1945. The average of 4 tons per bomber equalled 150,000 sorties using a total of 228 million gallons of fuel. Total incendiaries dropped by Lancasters: 51,513,106. Comparing the bomb tonnage dropped with aircraft lost, Stirlings amounted to 41 tons, Halifaxes to 51 tons and Lancasters to 132 tons. Between February 1942 and May 1945, 3,431 Lancasters and approximately 24,000 air crew failed to return from operations.

1945 and 1946

Two Lancaster B.Is (PD328 Aries of the Empire Air Navigation School, Shawbury) and (PB873 Thor of the Empire Air Armaments School, Manby) make round-the-world and trans-polar flights.

2 February 1946

Last Lancaster, a Mk.I (FE), enters service. Some modified Lancaster B.Is continue serving on bomber squadrons until 1949–50 because of delays in Lincoln development and delivery.

9 July 1946

Lancaster B.I (FE)s of 35 Squadron set out on a goodwill tour of the USA.

1948

Two Lancasters operated by Flight Refuelling Ltd ferry petrol during the Berlin Airlift. Ten other Lancastrians are also used by Flight Refuelling Ltd as part of the air operation after the Soviets cut off land links with British- and American-occupied areas of West Germany. The Berlin Airlift lasts from 24 June 1948–11 May 1949. During the winter 6,000 tons of coal and petrol a day is delivered to the beleaguered city as well as 1,500 tons of food. Avro Lancasters and the Lancaster variants – Lancastrians, Yorks and Tudors – are among the British aircraft involved.

1953 to 1956

December 1953

Last Lancaster (a PR.I) is retired from Bomber Command.

February 1954

Last Lancaster in RAF service, an MR.3, is retired after service in Malta.

15 October 1956

Farewell RAF ceremony at St Mawgan, Cornwall, as Lancaster RF325 at the School of Maritime Reconnaissance is retired and flown to Wroughton in Wiltshire to be scrapped.

1

NOT A CLOUD IN THE SKY

The Lancaster, coming into operation for the first time in March 1942, soon proved immensely superior to all other types in the Command. The advantages it enjoyed in speed, height and range enabled it to attack with success targets that other types could attempt only with serious risk or even certainty of heavy casualties. Suffice it to say that the Lancaster, in no matter what terms, was incomparably the most efficient of our bombers. In range, bomb-carrying capacity, ease of handling, freedom from accident and particularly in (low) casualty rate, it far surpassed the other heavy types.

Sir Arthur Harris

On Christmas Eve 1941 three ex-works Avro Lancasters arrived at Waddington – a magnificent Christmas present for 44 Squadron, which in September had become ‘Rhodesia’ Squadron because of the considerable number of Rhodesian volunteers now serving on it, many awaiting air-crew training. ‘The Rhodesians – with their outlandish appearance and air of tough independence, skins bronzed by a warmer sun than England’s and eyes used to wider distances – were so unmistakably not English,’ recalled Pip Beck, a WAAF. ‘I liked their easy, pleasant manner and lack of formality and soon came to know them well. The men came from places with strange musical names. Shangani, Umtali, Gwelo, Selukwe – Que-Que, Bulawayo – one could almost make a song from them, I thought.’ It was with intense interest that everyone in Flying Control watched the Lancasters’ approach and landing. As the first of the three taxied round the perimeter to the Watch Office, Pip Beck stared in astonishment at this ‘formidable and beautiful’ aircraft, cockpit as high as the balcony on which she stood, and the great spread of wings with four enormous engines. ‘Its lines were sleek and graceful,’ she purred:

yet there was an awesome feeling of power about it. It looked so right after the clumsiness of the Manchester, from which its design had evolved. Their arrival meant a new programme of training for the air and ground crews and no operations until the crews had done their share of circuits, bumps and cross-countries and thoroughly familiarised themselves with the Lancasters. There were one or two minor accidents at this time; changing from a twin-engined aircraft to a heavier one with four engines must have presented some difficulties – but the crews took to them rapidly. I heard nothing but praise for the Lancs.

Snow blanketed the airfield and blew into great drifts. It was very beautiful to look out on from the Control room, wearing my loaned flying boots – but less enjoyable to walk through when the blizzard raged. When it stopped, all hands were called out to help clear the runways and it was an amazing sight to see hundreds of airmen, aircrew and some WAAFs shovelling away until well into the dusk to free the main runway. Between the efforts of the snowploughs and the toiling shovellers, piles of snow lay by the sides of the runway and the job was done. A little flying took place and two of the precious Lancs suffered a small amount of damage, though not serious, in spite of the dreadful weather conditions.

The weather eased up a little and one day the airfield seemed to be overrun with boys from the Lincoln Air Training Corps. I watched enviously as they had trips in a Lanc. If they could have this marvellous opportunity, why couldn’t I? It was expressly forbidden for WAAF to go up in operational aircraft. The boys were wildly enthusiastic, of course …1

The Rhodesian Squadron would suffer the heaviest overall losses in 5 Group and the heaviest Lancaster losses and highest percentage of Lancaster losses both in 5 Group and in Bomber Command. But they operated Lancasters longer than anyone else and they were the only squadron with continuous service in 5 Group.

Coinciding with the introduction of the Lancaster into squadron service was the arrival on 22 February 1942, at Bomber Command Headquarters at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, of a new AOC-in-C, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Travers ‘Bomber’ Harris CB OBE, who was recalled from the USA where he was head of the permanent RAF delegation. Harris 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 also be civilian, not just military. The famous ‘area bombing’ directive, which had gained support from the Air Ministry and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, had been sent to Bomber Command on St Valentine’s Day, 14 February, eight days before Harris assumed command.

Roy Chadwick, Chief Designer of the Lancaster, in his office at Avro. Born in Farnworth near Bolton in 1893, Chadwick began work in the drawing office in 1911, and in 1936 he designed the Manchester twin-engined bomber to specification P.13/36. When, by mid-1940, he knew that the bomber would not prove successful, he instructed his design staff to convert the Type 679 to a four-engined bomber using either Rolls-Royce Merlins or Bristol Hercules radials and the Lancaster was born. Unlike Reginald Mitchell, designer of the equally illustrious Spitfire, Chadwick witnessed the fruits of his endeavours during the war but he was killed on 23 August 1947 in the crash of the Avro Tudor II during a test flight.

Harris did not possess the numbers of aircraft necessary for immediate mass raids. On taking up his position he found that only 380 aircraft were serviceable. Of these, only 68 were heavy bombers, while 257 were medium bombers. Another of the new generation RAF bombers, the Manchester, had been suffering from a plague of engine failures and was proving a big disappointment. During March, 97 ‘Straits Settlements’ Squadron moved the short distance from Coningsby to Woodhall Spa, south-east of Lincoln, to become the second squadron to begin conversion from the Manchester to the Avro Lancaster. On 36 raids with Manchesters, 97 Squadron had lost eight aircraft from 151 sorties. Re-equipment would take time and early in 1942 deliveries began to trickle through. In January–February, 44 Squadron’s Lancasters and their crews spent a frustrating time standing by to fly to Wick in Scotland to refuel and take off again to sow mines at the mouth of a Norwegian fjord to prevent the Tirpitz from sailing, but the weather worsened and the Lancasters remained on the ground. On 23 February, the Lancasters were again loaded up with mines but the aircraft stood by all the next day and then were stood down until 1 March. Finally, on the evening of 3 March, with AVM John Slessor, the 5 Group commander, there to watch them, four aircraft led by S/L John Dering Nettleton, the South African CO of 44 Squadron, took off and flew the first Lancaster operation when they dropped mines in the Heligoland Bight. All the Lancasters returned safely. That same night the Main Force destroyed the Renault factory at Billancourt, near Paris. Just one aircraft (a Wellington) was lost. During March also, the first ‘Gee’ navigational and target-identification sets were installed in operational bombers; these greatly assisted aircraft in finding their targets on the nights of 8/9 and 9/10 March in attacks on Essen. Without ‘Gee’ these had been a difficult target to hit accurately. Just two Lancasters took part in the second of the Essen raids because on 8 March eight of 44 Squadron’s Lancasters had been ordered to Lossiemouth for a possible strike on the Tirpitz near Trondheim. ‘A Naval convoy escort fired at the Lancs as they flew over it,’ recalls Pip Beck. ‘A Spitfire next attacked the Lancs until frantic firing of the colours of the day convinced its pilot that they were not enemy aircraft.’ Luckily no damage or casualties had resulted beyond irritated and indignant air crew. ‘Oh well – the bloody Navy doesn’t know its aircraft from its elbow! But they expected better from their own Service. If words could kill, the Spit would have gone down in flames.’

By command of the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, the staff of the Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte (Luftwaffe Reich or German Air Force Command Centre) had been set up in March 1941, and the following month the night-fighter division, under Generalmajor Josef Kammhuber, was placed in its command. In Holland and the Ruhr 6–10/10ths cloud was quite customary, so Kammhuber therefore concentrated his energies on the development of an efficient Ground Controlled Interception (GCI) technique – Dunkle Nachtjagd – later called Himmelbett (literally ‘bed of heavenly bliss’, or ‘four-poster bed’, because of the four night-fighter control zones). Kammhuber arranged his GCI positions in front of the searchlight zones and encouraged crews to attempt interception first under ground control; if that failed, the searchlights were then at their disposal. By the winter of 1941–42, the Kammhuber line was complete. The night-fighter formations, equipped mostly with Bf 110s, were stationed almost entirely in Holland, Belgium and north-western Germany. The completion of night-fighter bases for controlled Himmelbett fighting, with two giant Würzburgs and one Freya radar, progressed well and was planned to cover initially the north German coastal area and Holland, and later Belgium.

The first Lancaster night-bombing operation on a German target was inauspicious. Only 62 of the 126 Main Force crews dispatched claimed to have bombed Essen, which was obscured by unforecast cloud and industrial haze. Both of 44 Squadron’s Lancasters returned safely, though one was hit by flak and the other had to land back at Docking in Norfolk. On the night of 13/14 March 1942, a single Lancaster piloted by Sgt George ‘Dusty’ Rhodes joined 61 Wellingtons, 13 Hampdens, ten Stirlings, ten Manchesters and nine Halifaxes in bombing Cologne. Rhodes got into difficulties on the return and landed without runway lights, overshooting the airfield. On 20 March, the second Lancaster squadron, No 97, flew their first operation with six aircraft out mining along the coast of Ameland and the Friesian Islands. One of the Lancasters machine-gunned a hotel and a party of soldiers for good measure and then climbed into cloud when a Bf 109 was spotted. All the Lancasters returned but one crashed near Boston and another landing at Abingdon crashed owing to the soft state of the ground. Two others landed safely at Upper Heyford and one at Bicester. On another mining operation, off Lorient on the night of 24/25 March, the first Lancaster casualties occurred when R5493 failed to return. A 420 Squadron RCAF pilot reported that he had seen a four-engined bomber heavily engaged with anti-aircraft (AA) fire over Lorient and the Royal Observer Corps reported flares out to sea. A search was made but no trace of South African F/Sgt Lyster Warren-Smith’s crew was found.

On 25/26 March, seven Lancasters were included in the force of 254 aircraft, making it the largest force sent to one target so far, when Bomber Command attacked Essen again. Over 180 crews claimed to have bombed the city but the flare-dropping was too scattered and only nine HE bombs and 700 incendiaries fell on target. All the Lancasters returned safely but nine aircraft, including five Manchesters, were lost. Lancasters took no part in further operations until the night of 8/9 April, when the main Bomber Command operation was to Hamburg and 272 aircraft were dispatched, yet another record raid for aircraft numbers to one target. Over 170 Wellingtons and 41 Hampdens made up the bulk of the force, which included just seven Lancasters. That same night 24 Lancasters on 97 Squadron carried out a mine-laying operation in the Heligoland Bight. Two nights later, eight Lancasters were included in the force of 254 aircraft that visited Essen again. Fourteen aircraft were lost but the Lancasters all returned safely.

Post-raid reconnaissance photo of the 17 april 1942 raid on augsburg when 12 aircraft of 44 and 97 Squadrons, led by S/L J.D. nettleton, carried out a low-level daylight attack on the man diesel engine plant. nettleton was awarded the VC for his part in the raid.

Visiting a dispersal at Waddington, Pip Beck noticed on a neighbouring hard-standing a Lancaster with different engines.

‘They,’ I was told, ‘are radial engines – it’s a Mark II Lanc. Our Mark Is have in-line engines which, as you know, are Merlins. The Mark IIs are Bristol Hercules Is.’ I was given some more technical detail, but that didn’t stick. However, at least I could recognise a Lanc with radial engines and say, knowledgeably, ‘Ah yes – a Mark II Bristol Hercules!’ and feel rather smug.

During April, a suspicion grew in Control that something big was being laid on for sometime in the near future and 44 would not be the only squadron involved. There had been frequent visits from S/L Sherwood and F/L Penman on 97 Squadron at nearby Woodhall Spa. Low-level cross-country flight practices were taking place and we wondered what they presaged. On April 17th we found out.

On 11 April, 44 Squadron had been ordered to fly long-distance flights in formation to obtain endurance data on the Lancaster. At the same time 97 Squadron began flying low in groups of three in ‘vee’ formation to Selsey Bill, then up to Lanark, across to Falkirk and up to Inverness to a point just outside the town, where they feigned an attack, and then back to Woodhall Spa. Crews knew the real reason was that they were training for a special daylight operation, and speculation as to the target was rife. S/L John Nettleton was chosen to lead the operation. During the morning of 17 April he and S/L John Sherwood DFC*, the 97 Squadron CO, and selected officers were briefed that the objective was the diesel engine manufacturing workshop at the MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg Aktiengesellschaft) factory at Augsburg in southern Bavaria. P/O Patrick Dorehill, Nettleton’s 20-year-old second pilot, wrote:

There was certainly some surprise on entering the briefing room to see the pink tape leading all the way into the heart of Germany. I can’t say I felt anxious. I had an extraordinary faith in the power of the Lancaster to defend itself. And then flying at low level seemed to me to be the perfect way to outwit the enemy. I thought the only danger might be over the target and, even there, believed we would be in and away before there was much response.

In the late afternoon a force of 12 Lancasters, flying in two formations of six, set out to attack the MAN works. The Lancasters flew very low. The first flight, led by Nettleton, ran into German fighters when well into France. In the battle which ensued, four of the Lancasters were shot down. Nettleton flew on towards Augsburg. When they got near the target the light flak was terrific and another Lancaster was hit and crash-landed 2 miles west of Augsburg.

Patrick Dorehill continued:

It was only sheer bad luck that we flew past an enemy airfield to which their fighters were returning from the diversionary raids our fighters and Boston bombers had laid on to the North. Up they came and I shall never forget those terrible moments. I do not think there were as many fighters as our gunners reported; it was just that each made several attacks which made it seem like more. Being on the jump seat I stood up and saw quite a bit of the action. Maybe there were a dozen. At any rate I looked back through the astrodome to see Nick Sandford’s plane in flames. He always wore his pyjamas on ops under his uniform. He thought it would bring him good luck.

This was followed by Dusty Rhodes’ plane on our starboard catching fire. The rest went down except Garwell on our port side. There was nothing for it really but to press on. A passing thought was given to turning south and then out to the Bay of Biscay but we reckoned that as we had come so far we might as well see it through. By this time I can tell you I didn’t give much for our chances. On we went and I marvelled at the peaceful countryside, sheep, cattle, fields of daisies or buttercups. Along came the Alps on our right, wonderful sight, Lake Constance looking peaceful. We had climbed up a bit by then, it being pretty hilly, and then down we came again getting close to the target. My recollection may be faulty but I thought we approached Augsburg from the south, following a canal or railway, factory chimneys appeared on the low horizon and then we came to the town. Large sheds were right in our path; Des Sands, the navigator, and McClure, the bomb aimer, had done a pretty good job of map reading.

Bombs away at about a hundred feet.

The flak zipped past and as we crossed the town to begin a left turn for home a small fire was apparent, gradually gaining strength, in Garwell’s plane. Our gunners saw it make a crash landing, which seemed to go relatively well.

The trip home was uneventful, thank goodness … Nettleton did a brisk circuit and down we came to be almost out of fuel. Golly, I can tell you I was glad to feel those wheels touch the grass.2

The second formation of six, led by S/L Sherwood, encountered no fighters. F/L David Penman DFC, piloting U-Uncle, recalled:

Rising ground forced us a little higher and then we saw the final turning point, a small lake. At this stage, mindful of the 11-second delay fuses, I had dropped back a little from Sherwood’s section and made one orbit before running in to attack. The river was a very good guide and it all showed up as predicted on the scale model. A column of smoke beyond the target came, presumably, from Garwell’s aircraft and it was quickly joined by another as Sherwood received a shell through the port tank just behind the inboard engine. Escaping vapour caught fire and as he passed over the target he began to turn left. His port wing struck rising ground and the aircraft exploded in a ball of flame. I was convinced that no one could have survived and on my return reluctantly told Mrs Sherwood. She would not believe it and events proved her right. I met him again after the war; he had been thrown, complete with his seat, through the windscreen as the aircraft struck the ground – the only survivor.

As we ran in at 250ft tracer shells from light AA on the roofs of the buildings produced a hail of fire and all aircraft were hit. W/O Tommy Mycock on my left received a shell in the front turret which set fire to the hydraulic oil within seconds. The aircraft was a sheet of flame. It reared up and turned right, passing right over my head with its bomb doors fully open, before plunging into the ground, burning from end to end. A shell ripped the cowling from my port inner and F/O Deverill received a hit near the mid-upper turret at the same time which started a fire. Despite these distractions we held course, with my front gunner doing his best to reduce the opposition. Ifould, my navigator, was then passing instructions for the bomb run. As he finally called ‘Bombs gone’ we passed over the factory. I increased power and dived as Deverill passed me with one engine feathered and the remaining three flat out. I called him and he asked me to cover his rear as his turrets were out of action. Ours had been unserviceable since the Channel and as we had no wish to relinquish the navigation, I told him to remain in position.

Our attack had been close to the planned time of 20:20 hours and as darkness came over we climbed to 20,000ft for a direct run home over Germany. It says much for Deverill’s skill that he remained in position until we reached the English coast and finally landed at Woodhall Spa. All surviving crews were grounded on return until after a press conference at the Ministry of Information in London.

Only five of the total force of 12 Lancasters returned, but eight of the 12 had bombed the target. Five of the delayed-action bombs had failed to explode. The others caused substantial damage, but the effect on production was slight, particularly since at least five of the MAN factory’s licensees were building U-boat diesel engines at that time. In all, 85 air crew took part in the raid; 37 air crew, of whom 12 became POWs, failed to return. Nettleton, who landed his badly damaged Lancaster at Squires Gate, Blackpool, ten hours after leaving Waddington, was awarded the Victoria Cross. Sherwood, though recommended for a VC, was awarded the DSO. Early in 1943, Nettleton was promoted to wing commander and given command of a squadron, but on the night of 12/13 July he lost his life during a raid on Turin.

On 21/22 December 1942, P/O W.J. Dierkes RCAF and Lancaster B.I R5699 on 61 Squadron returned early from the raid on Düsseldorf due to a failure in the intercom system but got caught in a severe downdraft when the pilot tried to land at Syerston and crashed. There were no injuries to the crew.

In March and April the Ruhr suffered eight heavy raids in which 1,555 aircraft took part, beside three small attacks. In the same period Cologne was visited four times by a total of 559 aircraft. By the end of April about 75,000sq yd occupied by workshops in the Nippes industrial district had been damaged. Heavy bombs had completely destroyed buildings nearby covering an area of 6,000sq yd. The Franz Clouth rubber works, covering 168,000sq yd, had been rendered useless, much of them being razed to the ground. To the east of the Rhine a chemical factory and buildings beside it occupying 37,500sq yd was almost entirely destroyed. Severe damage had also been caused to the centre of the city. All this was confirmed by the evidence of photo reconnaissance. Twice Dortmund was heavily bombed – on 14/15 April and again on the next night – a group of factories in the Wiesenberger Strasse being extensively damaged. Hamburg endured five raids, those on 8/9 April and the 17th/18th being especially severe. The raid on Cologne on the 22nd/23rd by 64 Wellingtons and five Stirlings, all equipped with ‘Gee’ for blind-bombing, was largely experimental. Over 40 HE bombs and more than 1,200 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city – perhaps 12–15 aircraft loads – but others fell up to 10 miles away.

Ever since the successful raid on Lübeck in March, Harris had been keen to mount another series of fire raids against a vulnerable historic town where incendiaries could once again achieve the most damage. Rostock on the River Warnow, south of the Baltic, which like Lübeck had become a powerful member of the Hanseatic League in the fourteenth century and whose narrow streets characterised the Altstadt (old town) like those of Lübeck, offered the same possibilities for success. For four consecutive nights beginning on 23 April, Rostock was smothered with a carpet of incendiary bombs as had happened at Lübeck a month earlier, the only difference being that on the first three nights a small force of 18 bombers of 5 Group attempted a precision attack on the Heinkel aircraft factory on the southern outskirts of Rostock.

Lancaster on a goodwill visit to the USA in 1942.

F/O John Wooldridge on 207 Squadron, heading for the Heinkel factory on his first trip in a Lancaster, could see the fire of the town glowing from almost 100 miles away.

It was an amazing sight. There hardly seemed to be any part of the town that was not burning. We dropped down to 5,000ft and skimmed across the factory. Lurid coloured shells seemed to be whizzing past in every direction. A building went past underneath, blazing violently. Then the nose of the Lancaster reared upwards as the heavy bomb load was released. Even from 5,000ft there was a clearly audible ‘whoomph’ as our heaviest bomb burst. As we turned to look, we saw debris flying high into the air. ‘Look out, pilot,’ shouted the navigator, as another stream of tracer shells shot up past the wing tips and we turned away to have a look at the target. All over the place, blocks of buildings were burning furiously, throwing up columns of smoke 3,000ft into the sky. We lost height to about 1,000ft and then flew across the southern part of the town, giving several good bursts of machine-gun fire. Sticks of bombs and incendiaries were crashing down everywhere and we certainly took our hats off to those anti-aircraft gunners. They continued firing even when their guns seemed to be completely surrounded by burning buildings. The last we saw of Rostock was from many miles away. We turned round and took a last look at the bright red glow on the horizon, then turned back towards England, very well satisfied with our first raid in our Lancaster.

The navigator of a Lancaster arriving towards the end of the raid told his captain that the fire he saw seemed ‘too good to be true’ and that it was probably a very large dummy. Closer investigation showed that it was in the midst of the Heinkel works and the Lancaster’s heavy load of high explosives was dropped upon it from 3,500ft. Damage to the factory was considerable. The walls of the largest assembly shed fell in and destroyed all the partially finished aircraft within. Two engineering sheds were burnt out, and in the dock area five warehouses were destroyed by fire and seven cranes fell into the dock. Four bombers failed to return and three more crashed in England. Photographs taken in daylight after the second attack by just over 90 aircraft on Rostock the following night, when 125 aircraft were dispatched, show swarms of black dots near the main entrance to the station and thick upon two of its platforms. These were people seeking trains to take them away from the devastated city. Another 34 aircraft attempted the bombing of the Heinkel factory but it was not hit. A Wellington on 150 Squadron at Snaith crashed on take-off and three of the four-man crew on a 420 Squadron Hampden at Waddington died when the aircraft crashed near Sønderby Klint.

The third attack on Rostock the following night by 110 aircraft was met by strengthened flak defences yet no bombers were lost on the raid, nor on the one by 18 aircraft that attacked the Heinkel factory once more. Manchesters on 106 Squadron at Coningsby, commanded by 24-year-old W/C Guy Gibson DFC*, scored hits; the first time in the series of raids that the factory had been damaged. Rostock was bombed again on 26/27 April, when just over 100 aircraft of seven different types split into two to attack the city and the Heinkel factory once more. The Official History describes the raid as ‘a masterpiece with successful bombing by both parts of the force’. And all for just three aircraft lost. The RAF attacks on Rostock were followed by those on Stuttgart on 4 and 5 May, and on the night of 19/20 May, 197 aircraft – 13 of them Lancasters – attacked Mannheim. Most of the bombing was in open country. Eleven aircraft failed to return.

Harris had for some time nurtured the desire to send 1,000 bombers to a German city, and on the morning of 30 May he decided to send his bombing force to Cologne. On paper the actual number of serviceable aircraft totalled 1,047 bombers – mostly Wellingtons (602). The raid would also include the first Lancaster operations of 106 Squadron. All told, 5 Group detailed 73 Lancasters, 46 Manchesters and 34 Hampdens for the operation. At the end of the briefings at each station a message from Sir Arthur Harris was read out: ‘Press home your attack to your precise objective with the utmost determination and resolution in the foreknowledge that, if you individually succeed, the most shattering and devastating blow will have been delivered against the very vitals of the enemy. Let him have it – right on the chin.’

Crews got their pinpoint south of the city and then turned north, with the Rhine to their right. Their aiming point was a mile due west of the Hindenburgbrücke bridge in the centre of the Altstadt. As the procession passed over the city, stick after stick of incendiaries rained down from their bomb bays, adding to the conflagration. The defences, because of the size of the attacking forces, were relatively ineffective and flak was described variously as ‘sporadic’ and ‘spasmodic’.

David Walker, a deeply religious Scottish pilot on 44 Squadron, approached Cologne at 10,000ft and saw the city through the smoke haze:

We searched for an area that was not already burning for it seemed that Cologne then was ablaze from end to end. We had been briefed that the main post office was the aiming point. ‘There are ammunition factories across the street,’ we were told. Many of us, however, believed that we were bombing the civilian population because we knew that in most cities the main post office is not surrounded by factories.

The tension grew as the pilot opened the bomb-bay doors. The noise of the aircraft intensified. This was our most vulnerable moment. Our bomb, which seemed nearly as long as the four-engined aircraft itself, was now exposed. Coloured tracer bullets arched through the sky. If anything hit that bomb, we were finished!

The bomb aimer now took control of the aircraft. Pointing his sights towards the target area, he gave the pilot his instructions: ‘Left … left … right … right … left a little … hold it … steady … on target. Bomb away!’ The plane shuddered and I heard the ‘whoosh’ as the four-ton bomb fell away from the aircraft. An endless minute went by as we waited until the photoflash illuminated the area we had bombed. Once the damage had been photographed, we set off for home.

As we banked and turned steeply away, I could see the shocking sight of a city burning from end to end. Dense smoke could be seen drifting away leaving a brilliantly illuminated plan below. My immediate reaction was a mixture of sadness, fear and guilt. And into my mind flashed a comparison between the holocaust below and the preaching of the pastor at home. I thought about the men, women and children who had lost their lives. Why am I taking part in the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in this huge city?3

F/O Arthur ‘Bull’ Friend, a tall, 17-stone Rhodesian second pilot-navigator on a 97 Squadron Lancaster, recalled:

The dykes, the towns and sometimes even the farmhouses of Holland, we could see them all clearly as we flew towards Cologne soon after midnight. The moon was to our starboard bow and straight ahead there was a rose-coloured glow in the sky. We thought it was something to do with a searchlight belt, which runs for about 200 miles along the Dutch-German frontier. As we went through this belt we saw by the light of blue searchlights some friendly aircraft going the same way as ourselves and a few coming back. But the glow was still ahead. It crossed my mind then that it might be Cologne but we decided between us that it was too bright a light to be so far away. The navigator checked his course. It could only be Cologne.

It looked as though we would be on top of it in a minute or two and we opened our bomb doors. We flew on; the glow was as far away as ever, so we closed our bomb doors. The glare was still there like a huge cigarette-end in the German blackout. Then we flew into smoke; through it the Rhine appeared a dim silver ribbon below us. The smoke was drifting in the wind. We came in over the fires. Down in my bomb aimer’s hatch I looked at the burning town below me. I remembered what had been said at the briefing, ‘Don’t drop your bombs on the buildings that are burning best. Go in and find another target for yourself.’ Well at last I found one right in the most industrial part of the town. I let the bombs go. We had a heavy load, hundreds of incendiaries and big high explosive. The incendiaries going off were like sudden platinum-coloured flashes, which slowly turned to red. We saw many flashes going from white to red and then our great bomb burst in the centre of them.

As we crossed the town there were burning blocks to the right of us and to the left the fires were immense. They were really continuous. The flames were higher than I had ever seen before. Buildings were skeletons in the midst of fires. Sometimes you could see what appeared to be frameworks of white-hot joists. The blast of the bombs was hurling walls themselves across the flames. As we came away, we saw more and more of our aircraft below us silhouetted against the flames. I identified Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Manchesters and other Lancasters. Above us there were still more bombers lit by the light of the moon. They were doing exactly as we did: going according to plan and coming out according to plan and making their way home.

‘Bull’ Friend would return from Cologne but would die piloting a Lancaster on the Bremen operation on 27/28 June. Two of his crew were killed also; four men were taken into captivity.

Thirty of the 53 bombers that were lost were believed to have been shot down by night-fighters in the Himmelbett boxes between the coast and Cologne. It was estimated by Bomber Command that 16 of the 22 aircraft that were lost over or near Cologne were shot down by flak. In all, 898 crews claimed to have hit Cologne and almost all of them bombed their aiming point as briefed. Fifteen aircraft bombed other targets. The total tonnage of bombs was 1,455, two-thirds of this being incendiaries. Post-bombing reconnaissance certainly showed that more than 600 acres of Cologne had been razed to the ground. The Daily Telegraph the following day reported: ‘At a Bomber Command Station, Sunday. On the 1001st day of the war more than 1,000 RAF bombers flew over Cologne and in 95 minutes delivered the heaviest attack ever launched in the history of aerial warfare.’

In England squadrons repaired and patched their damaged bombers – no fewer than 116 aircraft suffered damage, 12 so badly that they were written off – and within 48 hours they were preparing for another 1,000-raid, against Essen. (The weather had proved unsuitable immediately after the raid on Cologne.) At nightfall on 1 June, 956 aircraft including 347 from the Operational Training Units (OTUs) took off and headed for Essen. Despite a reasonable weather forecast, crews experienced great difficulty in finding the target. Essen itself escaped lightly and Krupp’s was once again left almost untouched. Although seemingly lacking the concentration of the earlier raid on Cologne, the bombing nevertheless was effective enough to saturate the defences. One skipper went as far as to say that the fires were more impressive than those of Cologne. A belt of fires extended across the city’s entire length from the western edge to the eastern suburbs. Many fires were also spread over other parts of the Ruhr. Of the 37 bombers lost on the second ‘Thousand-Bomber Raid’ on Essen, 20 were claimed by night-fighters.

After Cologne and Essen, Harris could not immediately mount another ‘Thousand-Bomber Raid’ and had to be content with smaller formations. On 2/3 June just 195 aircraft, 97 of them Wellingtons, carried out a follow-up raid on Essen. On the night of 3/4 June, 170 bombers were dispatched on the first large raid to Bremen since October 1941. Crews reported only indifferent bombing results and 11 aircraft failed to return – eight of them shot down by Nachtjäger. On 5/6 June in the raid on Essen by 180 aircraft, 12 failed to return and the bombing was scattered over a wide area. The next night a force of over 230 aircraft was dispatched to Emden. It received another visit on 20/21 June, this time from 185 aircraft. However, only part of the bomber force identified the target and only about 100 houses were damaged. Eight aircraft, three of them Wellingtons, failed to return. On 22/23 June, 144 Wellingtons, 38 Stirlings, 26 Halifaxes, 11 Lancasters and eight Hampdens attacked Emden again for the third night in a row. ‘Good’ bombing results were claimed by 196 of the crews but decoy fires are believed to have diverted many bombs from the intended target. Six aircraft – four Wellingtons, one Lancaster and a Stirling – were lost. Emden reported that 50 houses were destroyed, 100 damaged and some damage caused to the harbour.

On the night of 25/26 June it was another ‘Thousand-Bomber Raid’, the third and final ‘thousand’ effort in the series of five major saturation attacks on German cities, when 1,067 aircraft – 96 of them Lancasters – attacked Bremen. The tactics were basically similar to the earlier ‘thousand’ raids except that the bombing period was now cut from 98 minutes, which was a feature of the Cologne raid, to 65 minutes. Attacks on Bremen were claimed by 696 Bomber Command aircraft. Generally the results were not as dramatic as at Cologne but much better than the second ‘thousand’ raid to Essen. Twenty-seven acres of the business and residential area were completely destroyed. The RAF plan to destroy the Focke-Wulf factory and the shipyards was not successful, although an assembly shop at the factory was destroyed by a 4,000lb bomb dropped by a 5 Group Lancaster. A further six buildings at this factory were seriously damaged and 11 buildings lightly so. The total of 48 aircraft lost was the highest casualty rate (5 per cent) so far. At Scampton two 83 Squadron Lancasters failed to return.

For three months – June, July and August – it was on only one night that ‘Bomber’ Harris was able to put into the air a force exceeding 500 aircraft. His wish to mount two or three raids each month of the order of 700 to 1,000 sorties was defeated by the weather, the rising casualties and the losses suffered by the OTUs. Despite the obvious harm that was being done to the training organisation, Harris used OTU aircraft and crews on four more operations to Germany. On three of these raids OTU aircraft and crews made up about a third of the force and on two of them the training units suffered a higher rate of losses than the squadrons. When OTU aircraft were included, raids were mounted by between 400 and 650 crews but in general Harris was compelled by the uncertain weather conditions to use only his operational squadrons. With these he achieved a high rate of effort, dispatching forces of the order of 200 aircraft ten times in June. A record 147 Bomber Command aircraft were destroyed by Nachtjagd (the German night-fighter arm) that month. From then until the introduction of ‘Window’ in July 1943, German night-fighters inflicted heavy losses on the bomber forces. (‘Window’ consisted of strips of silver paper, which when picked up by German radar gave a massive ‘blip’ covering the whole of their screens, preventing them from picking out individual aircraft.)

On the night of 27/28 June, when 144 aircraft visited Bremen again, 119 aircraft bombed blindly through cloud after obtaining ‘Gee’ fixes. It was believed that the raid was successful. Nine aircraft, four of them Wellingtons, two Halifaxes and two Lancasters and a Stirling, were lost.

Bomber Command dispatched 253 aircraft to Bremen on 29/30 June; 184 aircraft relying only on their ‘Gee’ fixes released their bombs within 23 minutes. This was the highest rate of concentration yet achieved. Fire caused extensive damage to five important war industries, including the Focke-Wulf factory and the AG Weser U-boat construction yard. Eleven aircraft failed to return.

At Scampton, 83 Squadron crews had assembled in the big station headquarters room used for briefings. ‘Something’ was in the wind. The squadron was stood down from operations for at least the next two weeks for a ‘special operation in daylight’. On 11 July, the intelligence officer at Scampton drew back the curtain covering the large map on one wall and revealed what crews had waited a fortnight to find out. He must have savoured the gasp of astonishment when the unveiling revealed that the target was Danzig (now Gdansk), a major U-boat repair and construction base far up on the Baltic, further even than Augsburg (from which, on 17 April, seven out of 12 Lancasters did not return). Forty-four Lancaster crews had been briefed for the ‘special operation’; a round trip of 1,500 miles. The force flew at low level and in formation over the North Sea before splitting up and flying independently across the Jutland Peninsula, then south before swinging due east across southern Sweden to emerge over the Baltic heading south-east to Danzig. Crews had been promised blue skies all the way, which was an open invitation for fighters, especially when crossing Denmark, but none appeared. The target, as expected, was clear of cloud and the Lancasters bombed the U-boat yards from normal bombing heights just before dusk. Unlike the daylight mission to Augsburg, the plan worked well, although some Lancasters were late in identifying Danzig and had to bomb the general town area in darkness. Twenty-four Lancasters bombed at Danzig and returned. Two more were shot down at the target.

On 25/26 July it was Duisburg’s turn, and 403 bombers, including 77 Lancasters, were dispatched. Twelve aircraft – two of them Lancasters – were lost. On the following night 403 aircraft – including 77 Lancasters – were dispatched to Hamburg which suffered its most severe air raid to date and widespread damage was caused, mostly in the residential and semi-commercial districts. Bomber Command was stood down on 27/28 July but this was the full-moon period and, on the night following, a return to Hamburg was announced at briefings. Crews were told that the raid would be on a far bigger scale than two nights before, though no Lancasters took part because of bad weather at 5 Group bases. The month of July and the ‘moon period’ ended with a raid on Düsseldorf on 31 July/1 August when 630 aircraft,4 including 100-plus Lancasters for the first time, were dispatched. More than 900 tons of bombs were dropped and some extensive damage was inflicted but 29 aircraft, two of them Lancasters, failed to return. At Waddington there was no word from L-London flown by F/Sgt Norman Tetley, a South African, which crashed near Mönchengladbach. All seven crew died. Among them was Sgt Peter Rix, the Rhodesian mid-upper gunner who two months earlier had married Jean, a WAAF at Waddington. Her favourite song-of-the-moment was Not a Cloud in the Sky which everyone loved to hear her sing. After Peter went missing no one saw her cry. Neither did they hear her sing again.5

A factory worker cleans the Perspex bomb aimer’s panel on the Avro production line.

On 15 August the first step in the creation of the Pathfinder Force (PFF), to precede the Main Force and drop brilliant flares and incendiary bombs over the target, both to ‘mark’ the target and provide a beacon for the Main Force of bombers, was taken when Bomber Command issued an instruction that a Pathfinder Force was to be formed at Wyton. The new force, whose motto was ‘We light the way’, comprised 7 Squadron flying Stirlings at Oakington, 35 Squadron flying Halifaxes at Graveley, 83 Squadron flying Lancasters at Wyton, 156 Squadron flying Wellingtons at Warboys nearby, and 109 Squadron flying Mosquitoes at Wyton. The force was commanded by Australian Group Captain (later AVM) Donald Bennett CBE DSO. After the PFF began operations, the rate of bombing rose from 17 tons a minute to more than 50 tons a minute and the loss of personnel per ton of bombs was halved. The first operation in which the PFF technique was used was the attack on Flensburg on the night of 18/19 August 1942, in which 31 heavy bombers took part. Gradually refinements were made in PFF technique, particularly as the result of the improvement in radar methods.6 Thirty-one bombers, 21 of them Wellingtons, were lost and a Lancaster crashed at Waddington on return.

Twelve bombers failed to return from the 4/5 September raid on Bremen by 251 Wellingtons, Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings. For the first time the Pathfinders split their aircraft into three forces. ‘Illuminators’ lit up the area with white flares, ‘visual markers’ dropped coloured flares if they had identified the aiming point and then ‘backers-up’ dropped all-incendiary bomb loads on the flares. The weather was clear and the PFF plan worked well. Bremen reported heavy bombing and the Weser aircraft works and the Atlas shipyards were among the industrial buildings that were seriously hit.

Cloud and haze on the following night prevented concentrated bombing by the 207 bombers sent to hit Duisburg. Eight aircraft were lost. On 8/9 September, 249 aircraft were dispatched to Frankfurt-am-Main. Five Wellingtons and two Halifaxes were lost. Two nights later, training aircraft of 91, 92 and 93 Groups swelled the numbers in a 479-bomber raid on Düsseldorf. The Pathfinders successfully marked the target using ‘Pink Pansies’ in converted 4,000lb bomb casings and containing a red pyrotechnic, benzol, rubber and phosphorus, for the first time. All parts of Düsseldorf except the north of the city were hit, as well as the neighbouring town of Neuss. As a result of the raid, 19,427 people were bombed out. Thirty-three aircraft failed to return and the OTUs were hard hit. Many training aircraft from various OTUs and conversion units were included in the force of 446 bombers which took off for Bremen on the night of 13/14 September. Almost 850 houses were destroyed and considerable damage was caused to industry, with the Lloyd Dynamo works being put out of action for two weeks and various parts of the Focke-Wulf factory for from two to eight days. Twenty-one aircraft failed to return.7

When, on the next night, 202 aircraft attacked Wilhelmshaven, the Pathfinder marking was accurate and the city suffered its worst raid of the war to date. Two nights later, 369 aircraft, including for the last time Wellington and Whitley aircraft on OTUs, carried out a strong Bomber Command raid on the Krupp works at Essen. Much of the bombing was scattered but effective, with 33 large fires and 80 ‘medium’ fires being started. Much damage was caused to housing, and eight industrial and six transport premises were struck by bombs. The Krupp works were hit by 15 high-explosive bombs and by a crashing bomber loaded with incendiaries. Forty-one bombers were lost, including nine Lancasters, two of which were on 9 Squadron at Waddington, the first of this type’s losses for the unit since converting from Wellingtons.

On the night of 19/20 September, 118 aircraft were dispatched to Saarbrücken and 68 Lancasters and 21 Stirlings went to Munich. At Saarbrücken the Pathfinders had to mark two targets but ground haze caused difficulties and the bombing was scattered to the west of the target. At Munich about 40 per cent of crews dropped bombs within 3 miles of the city centre, the remainder dropping them in the western, eastern and southern suburbs. Four bombers went missing in action. Four nights later, Lancasters of 5 Group bombed the Baltic coastal town of Wismar and the Dornier aircraft factory nearby. Many of the crews went down to under 2,000ft but just four aircraft were lost. On 6/7 October the Pathfinders succeeded in illuminating the Dummer See, a large lake north-east of Osnabrück, which was used as a run-in point, to which 237 aircraft were dispatched. The bombing was well concentrated. Six aircraft were lost. No further Main Force ops were flown until the 13th/14th, when the target for 288 aircraft – 82 of them Lancasters – was Kiel. One of the eight aircraft lost was a Lancaster. On 15/16 October, 289 aircraft including 62 Lancasters went to Cologne. This time 18 aircraft – five of them Lancasters – failed to return.

On the afternoon of 17 October, 94 Lancasters of 5 Group took off for the large Schneider factory at Le Creusot on the eastern side of the Massif Central. The factory was 200 miles south-east of Paris and more than 300 miles inside France so only Lancasters would have the necessary performance. Le Creusot was regarded as the French equivalent to Krupp’s and produced heavy guns, railway engines and, it was believed, tanks and armoured cars. A large workers’ housing estate was situated at one end of the factory. Bomber Command had been given this as the highest priority target in France for a night attack but only in the most favourable of conditions. AM Sir Arthur Harris decided to attack by day, despite the failure of the Augsburg raid exactly six months earlier. Eighty-eight aircraft led by W/C Leonard ‘Slosher’ Slee DFC, the 49 Squadron CO at Scampton, were to bomb the Schneider factory and the other six were to attack a nearby transformer station which supplied the factory with electricity. Crews claimed a successful attack on the factory but photographs taken later showed that much of the bombing had fallen short and had struck the housing estate nearby. Some bombs had fallen into the factory area but damage there was not extensive. The Daily Express claimed that the Lancasters had done a ‘Grand National over hedges to blast French Krupps’. One Lancaster was lost, when it crashed into the transformer station during its low-level bombing run. Forty-one aircraft landed at their ‘home’ base in Lincolnshire but 45 ‘dropped in’ at 23 airfields south and south-west of Lincolnshire, one as far west as Exeter.

On 22/23 October, 112 Lancasters of 5 Group and the Pathfinders set out for the historic port city of Genoa to recommence the campaign against Hitler’s Axis ally to coincide with the opening of the Eighth Army offensive at El Alamein in Egypt. It was a perfectly clear moonlit night and the Pathfinder marking was described as ‘prompt and accurate’. This was the first heavy and really concentrated attack made on Genoa, 180 tons of bombs being dropped in the ideal conditions. No Lancasters were lost, although one from 97 Squadron at Woodhall Spa crash-landed at North Luffenham after running low on fuel. The bombers returned to Genoa on the night of 23/24 October. The next day, 88 Lancasters of 5 Group were sent to attack Milan in daylight. This time a fighter escort of Spitfires accompanied the force across the Channel to the Normandy coast. The aircraft flew on independently over France close together and very low, hedge-hopping in the manner in which the Augsburg and Le Creusot raids had been made possible and using partial cloud cover, to a rendezvous at Lake Annecy. The Alps were then crossed and at four minutes after five o’clock in the afternoon, the first Lancaster nosed down through the heavy clouds and unloaded. They came in rapidly, pinpointing their targets and wheeling round. Mixed in the general delivery of HEs and incendiaries were a goodly proportion of 4,000-pounders. Some of the Lancasters went down to 50ft to bomb their targets. The raiders caught Milan by surprise and the bombing was accurate, 135 tons of bombs being dropped in 18 minutes. Only when they were well on their homeward run did darkness come down and afford them any protection. Three Lancasters that failed to return were all presumed lost over the sea. A fourth Lancaster, piloted by F/L Dorian Dick Bonnett DFC on 49 Squadron at Scampton, crashed on approach to Ford airfield in Sussex. Bonnett and five crew members died and two men were injured, one of whom died six days later.