Maximum Effort

by Vincent Formosa

  It was a rough deal, coming back to ops. When he completed his own tour and had a rest, Dickinson was sure he would be feeling the same way. It was hard enough as it was, screwing up the courage to go up night after night with the knowledge that there was a four or five percent chance he wouldn’t be coming back. To return and face down those demons or a second time must be a daunting prospect for any man.

  "Give them some time," he counselled. "They've been with Lambert since OTU and done a few ops with him, it was a bit of a jolt being told they'd be carrying on their tour without him."

  Carter could hear where Dickinson was coming from. He would have to bend, for now, but not too much.

  "I'll try, sir."

  Carter’s crew had an impromptu conference that evening in the tap room of The Duck and Drake. It was one of the local pubs around Amber Hill frequented by air crew and the walls were adorned with souvenirs. Being ex-RAF, the landlord was quite well disposed to the crews in their off duty hours and you could always get a good game of darts there.

  Hunched around a small circular table, the mood was ugly while they dissected the day’s events. Smith opened the batting for the prosecution.

  “I say we go in to the CO and ask for a new pilot,” he said angrily, but it was hard to take him seriously with two wads of cotton wool up his nostrils. There was a gash scabbing quite nicely on the bridge of his nose. Jones murmured agreement with him, but the rest of them looked distinctly uncomfortable at the suggestion.

  “Don’t be bloody daft,” said Forrester. “How will that look? A bunch of nobodies like us go strolling in to see the old man and think our word is going to count over that of a DFC on his second tour.” He looked at each of them. “We’ll look like idiots.” He sat back in his chair and sipped moodily from his pint.

  “Then what do we do?” asked Tinsley. He looked at Smith, then Jones. The young lad looked away, distinctly uncomfortable.

  “We put up with it,” said Forrester. He didn’t entirely agree with Carters way of putting his point across but there was something in what he was trying to do that afternoon. Tinsley snorted.

  “Spoken like a true believer,” he said with a snide lilt to his Norfolk accent. Forrester immediately shot back at him.

  “Hey, I’m not the one who couldn’t even come up with a course when he was asked for it,” he replied, dabbing Tinsley in the chest with his forefinger. The rest of the crew turned on their navigator. Some of them secretly thought the whole thing with the corkscrew was to get back at Tinsley for being slow on providing a course.

  “Yeah, what was that about?” asked Fitzgerald.

  “So I didn’t have a course ready, so what?” Tinsley was bullish at this sudden hostility, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.

  “I saw you fiddling with the map,” Fitzgerald accused him. “You didn’t have a clue where we were.”

  “Because-we-were-on-an-air-test,” Tinsley replied slowly, enunciating each word. “Lambert just circles the airfield,” he protested. He threw up his hands in frustration. “I figured this guy would do the same.”

  “Well you figured wrong, didn’t you, ducky?” Smith told him.

  “Thank you very much,” said Tinsely in a sulk, pissed off he was being made the scapegoat. There had been a lot more mistakes than just him. On ops, they worked well together and he was annoyed that after just one test flight, that unity was starting to unravel.

  “Look, there’s a lot we could learn from this guy,” suggested Forrester, trying to pour oil on troubled waters.

  “Not if he keeps nagging us we won’t,” said Fitzgerald. “I had a nanny as bad as him.”

  “He can fly though,” said Forrester.

  “So he held her up while he feathered an engine, big deal,” complained Tinsley.

  Forrester shrugged. They hadn’t seen Carter in the cockpit like he had, fighting the controls to maintain height on one engine, using the trim tabs and force of will to hold it there. Forrester doubted he’d have been able to do the same.

  Jones thought about Carter. One look told you that their new pilot was a time served veteran. His officers peaked cap was this squashed shape that sat on his head at a rakish angle. The leather flying jacket slung over one shoulder was stained and worn and his blue battledress and pants looked like they had been dragged up and down a field. The white and purple ribbon of his DFC and his pilot wings were stained and blackened.

  “I want to know where he got his scar from,” he asked aloud, thinking about that livid pink line on his cheek that moved when he spoke.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” suggested Smith, deadpan. He could imagine what response that kind of question would provoke.

  3 – Here We Go Again

  5 Group Headquarters at St Vincents Hall in Grantham sent out the orders that morning. It was to be another maximum effort, all squadrons in the Group to attack with heavy loads. Wrestling with the usual servicing problems, 363's ground crew managed to put nine aircraft on the line.

  When the word got out they were on that night, heads craned to read the list posted on the notice board in the Mess. With more crews than operational aircraft, it was always a bit of a battle to be one of the chosen few. Carter saw his name near the top, right under Dickinson's. Briefing was 3pm, take off at 6pm. With the long winter nights they could get away earlier and be home in the early hours the following morning.

  There was lively discussions over lunch about what and where the target might be. The Mess staff asked who were flying that night and served them the symbolic eggs and bacon. Carter thought about the coming operation while he worked his way through his helping of sponge and custard, mentally ticking off what needed to be done.

  After lunch, Carter rounded up his crew and had a short air test. They were good little boys this time and seemed to do their jobs competently enough. The port engine ran a little rough but the ground crew checked the cooling system and that seemed to cure it when Carter took it up a second time to see.

  The squadron gathered for briefing in a big Nissen hut. At the far end there was a stage twelve feet deep with two steps up to the main platform at either side. On the left side of the stage was a six foot long table and behind that a blackboard on a wheeled base, the kind you saw in small village schools. Five chairs occupied centre stage and behind all of it was a large map of Europe. Rows of seats filled the rest of the hut with an aisle down the middle. All the windows had their blackout curtains drawn and the room had the air of a cinema on the Saturday matinee showing.

  Carter sat with his crew in the middle of the hall, surrounded by the hubbub of friendly chatter and banter. His crew talked quietly amongst themselves but no one involved him in the conversation. The ice had not yet fully thawed it seemed.

  Sent to Coventry, he looked around the hall. Some enterprising soul had hung wooden models of RAF and Luftwaffe types from the ceiling. Propaganda posters were pinned to the curved walls, preaching their warnings about security with the familiar lines, ‘keep mum, she’s not so dumb’ and, ‘loose lips sink ships’.

  “Room, attention!” barked Dickinson from the back of the room. Chairs scraped and squealed on the lino as one hundred men got to their feet and braced to attention.

  Asher strode down the central aisle followed by Dickinson. The met officer, Linkletter, the squadrons intel officer, a Flight Lieutenant called Donovan Kent followed behind. Dickinson’s navigator and bomb aimer, John Blackthorne, or Black Jack as he was known amongst the men was the squadrons bombing leader and he brought up the rear. They mounted the stage and sat down on the chairs. Asher motioned for the men to sit. Saunderson sat at the back of the room which was now guarded outside by MP’s. Asher went first, striding to the front of the stage, hands on hips. He looked around the room, each man feeling as if he was talking to them directly.

  “Now you’ve had the chance to enjoy your few days off, it’s back to business." A good humoured laugh rippled around the room with this opening comment. "Tonight, over
one hundred bombers are going to attack Germany.” That remark brought a rumble of interest. Asher picked up a long stick leaning against the blackboard. He walked over to the large map and slapped it with the tip of the stick.

  “There it is,” the stick circled a city. “Kiel. We’ll take a northerly track out over the water and then head east towards the target. Navigators, don’t forget Heligoland to get a pinpoint. Don’t stray too far south otherwise you’ll blunder into the guns near Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven.”

  He went on to detail the route in more depth. Carter made a few salient notes, fixing the broad strokes in his head. Kiel should be relatively easy to find. A sprawling port city, any navigator should be able to find a town along a coastline.

  Linkletter got up next and went over to the blackboard. Bookish, with horn rimmed glasses and thinning dark hair, he was swamped by his uniform which hung off his gangling frame. Linkletter was well liked. He spoke with enthusiasm and cared deeply about helping the crews as much as he could.

  “The low pressure front of the last few days has moved on further east. We should experience a period of clear weather.” There was a small cheer. He circled some white lines that covered the board. Gibberish to most people, it was like music to Linkletter. He could read those lines as others might read Mozart.

  “Winds over central Europe will be mainly easterly between twenty and thirty knots. Cloud cover will be patchy but clear over the target. On your return journey, that easterly wind will help push you home until you’re all tucked up in bed. It’s a dim moon tonight, enough light for you navigators to get a good sight over water.”

  Kent talked about the known areas of flak to avoid and pointed out a few new airfields where the German nightfighters were thought to be operating from. Carter noticed that two in particular were quite close to their easterly track but there was a flak belt further south that made things tricky. It would take some delicate navigating to thread through the gap.

  Black Jack jumped up next. An energetic Welshman, he was a reservist who had embraced the war whole heartedly from day one. He had survived some of the early raids flown during the summer of 1940. Wounded in the arm and leg on a raid over Bremen he had fought tooth and nail to come back to an operational squadron to do another tour.

  He described the target, the Deutsche Werke U-boat yard. Not far away was the naval base so there was plenty to aim at. He pointed out the dry docks and slipways where the submarines were built and serviced. Blackthorne used the CO’s stick to point at a crude chalk outline of the city on the other side of the blackboard.

  “Kiel has a long canal just to the north west. That’s a good pinpoint for your run in and you should see it easily. The last bit of it runs almost west to east straight to the city. The boat yard is here,” he pointed out the western side of the channel, “Pay attention to the canal, Eckenforde is just to the north and it’s easy to get confused between the two. Watch out for dummy targets. It would be a shame to go all that way and drop them on open countryside.”

  Asher stood up at the end for the final speech. The trick was finding the right balance between giving them the propaganda line and some encouragement. The station commander, Group Captain Etheridge normally gave the boys a pep talk but he was currently on leave so it was up to Asher to fill in.

  “This war won’t be won at full speed lads. I’d rather be the tortoise than the hare if it means we make it to the finish line. I don’t relish the thought of coming back here to finish the job some other time so let’s do it right the first time. I want to see all of you back in the Mess later. Good luck to you all.”

  The men got to their feet as Asher jumped down off the stage and walked down the central aisle. As soon as he left the room, the chatter started again. Carter noticed the mood was buoyant, there seemed to be a good press on attitude despite the distance to the target.

  Carters crew scattered after briefing, each to their own. Carter went back to his room and got himself ready. Forrester did his best to get some sleep. Laid out on his bed he tried to relax while Fitzgerald wrote a letter. When he was finished he licked the envelope and then left it propped up against his travel clock.

  They went out to the aircraft at five. Squashed into a truck, the WAAF driver drove around the peri track, dropping the crews off as she went. The ground crew were waiting for them by their aircraft. One man was up a ladder polishing the bomb aimers nose blister with some cotton waste while the remainder gathered by a hut they had built from salvaged bits of Nissen hut. hut.

  It was an old joke that aircrew were only borrowing an aircraft from the ground crew. In the case of the Manchester that was more accurate. They spent the most time with it, showering those delicate engines with love and care and tinkering with the troublesome hydraulic system.

  Carter did his walk around with Forrester, showing him what he thought should be checked. They finished by looking in the bomb bay which was filled with a mixed load of 500lb bombs and containers stuffed with 4lb incendiary sticks.

  Twenty minutes to start up time, Carter had them board. The Manchester was icy inside, the winter cold penetrating the metal. Carter worked the yoke while Forrester looked out of the canopy to see the control surfaces were moving properly. Fitzgerald tested his radio. Tinsley spread his maps and pencils and log book out on the small table. Carter asked him for the course changes on a piece of paper. He’d learned from bitter experience what could happen if something happened to your navigator. He tucked the paper into the top of his flying boot.

  They assumed positions for take off. Smith, Jones and Fitzgerald sat with their backs resting against the main spar. No one sat up front in the nose in case of accidents.

  Ten minutes to take off time, the quiet was shattered as a Manchester along the line started their engines. The roar intensified as plane after plane started up. The ground crew came out of their little hut and Carter got their attention by circling a bunched fist above his head. The Sergeant pointed at the port engine.

  “Starting one,” Carter announced. The starter motor whined. The engine coughed once, twice and then the big propeller span into a glittering disc. The noise was terrific. Carter closed the sliding window on the canopy but it made little difference in dimming the racket. Forrester watched the dials as the temperature started to rise.

  They started the starboard engine. Again, the prop started turning and within a few seconds, the engine burst into life. For all its faults, the Vulture started far easier than the engines ever did on the old Hampdens. They let them run for a few minutes to get warm and settle down. Carter then ran them up, the big mainwheels squashing up against the yellow wooden chocks. The bomber strained for the off, airframe vibrating as the engines roared.

  At his signal, the chocks were pulled clear and the Manchester moved forwards. Turning right onto the perimeter track, they headed round to the runway. Carter was going back to war.

  4 – Busman’s Holiday

  It was a dark night. Even with half light from the moon, the thick clouds made it hard to see very far. At twelve thousand feet, Carter was finding his work cut out for him. Topped off to the brim with petrol to get there and back, the Manchester was very close to its maximum all up weight. It had taken them an age to get up to ten thousand, but the further they went, the more fuel they burned so there was less strain on the engines.

  The take off had been hairy. Fully loaded, the lack of power was painfully obvious as the Manchester had trundled along, slow to accelerate to take off speed. Towards the end of the runway, they had finally come unstuck but then Carter found it almost impossible to climb. Raising the wheels and flaps at five hundred feet, he had begun an almost constant battle to coax the big bomber into the sky.

  Over the channel he had the gunners test their guns. Jones had wormed into the front turret and fired some short bursts, watching the bullets go arcing over the water before going back and doing the same in the mid upper turret.

  In the tail, Smith muttered as he moved his turr
et side to side, his eyes quartering the sky. His nose still hurt from the day before but he hadn’t been to see the MO about it. The last thing he wanted was to be grounded and miss a trip with his crew.

  Carter settled down for the long haul. He yawned and rolled his shoulders, trying to keep awake. That was something he had forgotten after months at the OTU. The cold he could deal with. His trouble had been keeping himself alert on the long outward leg.

  Staring into the inky black was tiring but it had to be done. Out there were lots of other aircraft, all heading in the same direction as a loose gaggle towards Kiel. On particularly filthy nights, another aircraft was just a dark smudge tired eyes could scarcely distinguish. The only warning might be a jolt from crossing the turbulent air of its propeller wash, then a pilot would have to react quickly, diving away before running into the back of someone else.

  Carter alternated looking outside with roving his eyes over the instrument in a set order. It was a constant routine of watching his turn and slip indicator, the airspeed indicator, the artificial horizon and the compass. It would be very easy to wander a few degrees off course or lose a few hundred feet in valuable height if you weren’t paying attention.

  He looked out over an undulating sea of grey clouds. Linkletter's prediction had been off. The cloud was not patchy, it was a thick grey blanket and Carter would have bet money that the winds were higher than predicted too.

  Tinsley had them behind schedule at the last checkpoint by fifteen minutes. Of course, that was assuming they were even close to their checkpoint in the first place. They could easily have been blown off course and Carter remained to be convinced of Tinsley's abilities as a navigator.

  They hit a patch of clear skies and they could see some Hampden’s below them. Carter was comforted by the fact that quite a few aircraft lower than he was. To someone on the outside that might sound brutal, but it was accepted that you tried to get as much height as possible on the outward leg. If someone else was lower than you and made a more tempting target, too bad.