No Place for Chivalry

by Alastair Goodrum

  The pilot of 3793, Oblt Hans Paas, struggled with the controls to keep the Heinkel airborne, when first one engine was shot out then the other failed. With consummate skill he managed to glide the heavy machine down to a crash-landing near the village of South Reston, north-west of Skegness. Clambering from his relatively undamaged aircraft, the local Home Guard, rifles and fixed bayonets at the ready, were somewhat puzzled to find Paas was the sole occupant. One of them recalled:

  Charlie Goulsbra and I were members of the Home Guard and involved with fire watching duties practically every night, our base being in an old chicken hut at Authorpe. The Heinkel passed over the hut on a full moon night and we could see both engines were stopped as it glided out of sight. Grabbing our rifles, we donned steel helmets and set off in pursuit on foot across the fields to South Reston where the vicar, another fire-watcher, told us the bomber had only just cleared his roof-top but he had not heard it crash. Accompanied now by the local policeman, we set off again and suddenly came across the plane in a field behind the school. After a conference we very gingerly approached the plane, rifles cocked, bayonets glinting in the moonlight and much to our relief the German airman surrendered. As the prisoner was marched off, one of the rifles was accidentally discharged and although unharmed, I’ve never seen anyone jump higher than that German did. I was left to guard the plane on my own and I vividly remember how nervous I felt at the time and even more so when, in the early hours of the morning, I heard a shouted order to ‘fix bayonets’ and a contingent of troops charged across the field towards me. I was only fifteen at the time and I was petrified.

  Crash inspectors recorded that painted beneath the cockpit of this Heinkel was a badge consisting of a white flash on a red shield, with a black ‘G’ in the flash itself.

  The subsequent fate of his crew came as a blow to this aircraft captain, who had only the safety of his comrades at heart when he ordered them to bale out as he wrestled with the controls. One by one, Oblt Gunther Trukenbrodt, Uffz Horst Walther, Uffz Paul Weber and Fw Nikolaus Heuser tumbled out of the Heinkel into the inky blackness above The Wash. All four came down in the sea and were drowned. Weber’s body was washed up on the Norfolk shore that same day, Walther on the 6th and Trukenbrodt almost a month later, on July 3rd. Now they rest together in a quiet corner of Great Bircham cemetery all, that is, except their compatriot Heuser who is still posted as ‘missing’.

  Just over a week later, on June 14 1941, Horace Gigney, too, was dead, the victim of another aeroplane accident. The Blenheim he was flying, L6726, suffered flap failure in a turn onto the approach to RAF Wittering, and stalled and spun in near Burghley Park, Stamford.

  That same night the experienced team of Sgts Ken Hollowell and Dick Crossman were back in action again patrolling in a moonlit sky over The Wash. Flying Beaufighter R2154 there were no gun stoppages this time and with just forty-one cannon rounds they made short work of Heinkel He111-H5, wk nr 4027, 1G+FL of I/KG27, which was also on its way to bomb Birmingham. The bomber, piloted by Ofw Alfred Thiede, was hit hard and emitting a trail of sparks it was seen to dive into the sea at the mouth of The Wash. Only one body was recovered from the water. Hollowell was another pilot to complain bitterly of problems with over-keen searchlights when, after losing a second bandit that night, his Beaufighter was held in a searchlight cone near Bircham Newton and he only escaped by continually flashing the code letter of the day.

  On July 8 the squadron lost another experienced crew. Dick Crossman teamed up with Tommy Thompson for a training flight involving low-level dummy attacks by several aircraft on army tanks near the boundary of RAF Wittering airfield. Take-off was at noon in Beaufighter T4629. When Fg Off Thompson was called in to attack he dived steeply on the tanks then pulled the nose up sharply, climbing away to port. Suddenly the Beaufighter stalled and with full power on, dived straight into the ground. Thompson died instantly but Crossman was pulled out of the wreckage with severe injuries from which he, too, died later that day. It seems the Beaufighter Mk I, being a relatively heavy aircraft, especially when fully loaded, could not cope with the stress of a quick change of altitude from dive to climb. There was a tendency for it to stall under such conditions and in fact the Air Ministry accident card (Form 1180) for this incident states: “type unsuitable for such an exercise on account of its high wing loading.”

  Now it was the port of King’s Lynn’s turn to feel the weight of the Luftwaffe’s hand. So far there had been only an occasional single raider to disturb the peace, with little damage, probably due to the existence of a decoy ‘town’ site just up The Wash coast at Wooton. The town’s heaviest raid so far, in property damage and casualty terms, occurred on June 11/12 1941 when Boal Street was wiped out entirely and serious damage caused in neighbouring streets too. Sixteen people were killed. Another year was to pass, almost to the day, before the Luftwaffe exacted its greatest toll from King’s Lynn. There were forty-two fatalities when, on the evening of Friday June 12 1942, the Eagle Hotel in Norfolk Street crowded with customers, including many servicemen, took a direct hit.

  Meanwhile the cat-and-mouse battle between the Beaufighters of 25 Squadron and Ju88 intruders of NJG2, was rejoined a couple of nights later. At this stage of the proceedings, serviceable aircraft available to this intruder unit seemed to fluctuate between ten and fifteen machines but despite taking losses, it was hunting over England on most nights throughout that summer. RAF Y-Service radio traffic monitoring data suggests the unit flew 315 intruder sorties during June, 270 on twenty-eight nights in July and 260 on twenty-six nights in August.

  On June 13/14, controlled by Orby GCI, Squadron Leader Harold Pleasance with his RO Sgt Bennie Bent, in T4634, intercepted Ju88C-4, wk nr 0550, R4+DM, of II/NJG2 in the Long Sutton area east of Spalding. Directed towards The Wash, in the clear starlit sky Pleasance spotted the bandit 500 yards distant going west at his own altitude of 11,000 feet. Closing to one hundred yards he gave the target a short burst of fire, then reducing the range to seventy-five yards he emptied all four magazines of cannon ammunition at the target. This produced a vivid flash, the Junkers reared up as if mortally hit, then fell into a long diving S-turn streaming white smoke. Sqn Ldr Pleasance kept the E/A in view and saw it pull out of the dive until, completely on fire it finally dived vertically into the ground. However, the Junkers’ crew baled out and at 00.30 hours, it crashed at Narford, two miles east of Narborough, near King’s Lynn, where some of its 50kg bombs exploded on impact. Pilot Uffz Richard Hoffmann and flight engineer Fw Peter Mayer were captured but the third member of the crew, wireless operator Gefr Johann Reisinger, died.

  Crash inspectors from AI1(g) found the armament carried was similar to other examples of Junkers night fighters: one MG FF 20mm cannon and three MG 17 (7.92mm) machine guns clustered in a faired-over nose with two separate MG 15s (7.92mm) in flexible mountings in the crew compartment. It was also noted on this Junkers that the individual aircraft code letter D was black outlined in white, and the fin carried one victory emblem, dated 9/4/41.

  Plt Off David Thompson was on patrol in The Wash area with his AI operator, Plt Off Dennis Britain, in Beaufighter R2157 that night too and scored again when he shot down what he thought was a Heinkel He111. His opponent this time was in fact Junkers Ju88C-4 intruder, wk nr 0335, R4+AM, of II/NJG2 which fell onto The Wash mud flats to the south of the Nene river outfall, a couple of miles out from the sea bank. Thompson got a visual on his target but lost it twice before he managed to keep it in view. Making sure this time, he closed the range and let fly with a short but devastating burst from just thirty yards that set the starboard engine on fire and since the Junkers immediately fell into a steep dive, he may have hit the pilot, too. The aeroplane did not recover and disintegrated on impact with the marsh. Six unexploded 50kg bombs were later found lying in the mud and two MG 15s recovered but the marsh is all embracing and apart from these items, little else could be seen of what was once an aircraft. All three crewmen were killed. The graves of Uffz Heinz Sc
hulz (flight engineer) and Uffz Jakob Ried (radio operator) are to be found in Sutton Bridge and Great Bircham cemeteries respectively. Ried’s body was washed up on the Norfolk side of the Wash coast some three weeks after the crash. Sadly the body of pilot Uffz Helmut Bahner was never found.

  All of the Beaufighters involved with 25 Squadron’s combats to date were the early, cannon-only models but the CO David Atcherley commandeered R2251, one of the first of the four cannon and six machine-gun versions to reach the squadron. He put it to good use on June 15/16 when, with just a two-second burst, he and John Hunter-Tod shot down a Ju88 into the sea off Sheringham, then repeated the dose to another Ju88 on July 4/5 which exploded under the weight of the Beaufighter’s heavy punch and fell into the sea twenty-five miles east of Wells-next-the-sea.

  Fg Off Herrick’s combat on June 22 1941, detailed in Chapter 1, brought to a close what might be regarded as the first – and most intensive – phase of the night battle fought out over the eastern air corridor to the Midlands. Of course there were always the inevitable patrols by defenders who could never relax their vigilance and as the nights increased in length once more, the Luftwaffe returned to attack the larger cities more frequently. It will become apparent that, with steady improvements to the GCI radar system and coverage, such interceptions made by those squadrons under discussion tended to move eastwards, with the fighters getting to grips with the enemy much earlier than a year previously. Furthermore, with the general decline in the Luftwaffe’s raids over England since the start of the Russian campaign, those night fighter squadrons not re-designated as intruders themselves, although under less pressure, did not simply sit and wait but utilised the relative inactivity to hone their interception skills even more.

  Moreover, this ‘lull’ allowed night fighter squadrons to provide night cover in directions for which resources were previously short such as, for example, covering the coastal shipping lanes running up the east coast, where convoys were always a target for marauding German bombers day or night. This was in fact one of the reasons for detachments of some of 151 Squadron’s experienced Defiant and Hurricane crews during the summer and autumn of 1941 from Wittering to Coltishall, the latter serving as a forward base for such sorties. Among those operating occasionally from Coltishall in 1941 were Hurricane pilot Plt Off Richard Stevens and Defiant pilot Plt Off Ian McRitchie, the latter taking with him Sgt A Beale and Plt Off R Sampson as air gunners on various occasions.

  Now flying a cannon-armed Hurricane regularly, Richard Stevens increased his personal tally on July 5/6 while patrolling a convoy off the north Norfolk coast, operating on this occasion directly from Wittering. The convoy was steaming north and Stevens searched ahead and to the east of it at 3,000 feet, trying to keep the ships between himself and the three-quarter moon. It was around 03.00 that he was drawn towards some bomb explosions and AA fire from the ships. An aircraft crossed his track above him and closing on it he identified it as a Ju88. Stevens gave it a one-second burst at 300 yards and saw hits on the fuselage. The bomber dived away, but squeezing off another one-second burst caused a vivid flash near the fighter followed by a large piece of the bomber whizzing past his cockpit. He thought his cannon shells may have hit the bomber’s canopy just as it was jettisoned. With flames flickering from it the Junkers did not pull out of the dive and hit the sea in a huge splash. It had taken just twenty-four cannon rounds to despatch this raider, whose watery end was witnessed by the 151 Squadron Defiant crew of Sgts Fielding and Gudgeon, who were also on convoy patrol duty in the same area.

  25 Squadron’s last brush with the enemy, before it moved from Wittering to Church Fenton, went to Sqn Ldr Harold Pleasance and Fg Off Dennis Britain when they were scrambled at 20.50 hours on October 1. Langtoft GCI sent them after a bandit circling in the vicinity of RAF Upwood and they chased and caught up with it over The Wash at 6,000 feet altitude in bright moonlight. It was a Junkers Ju88 in a shallow dive, going straight and fast, towards home. In X7621, a cannon and machine-gun model, Sqn Ldr Pleasance closed to 250 yards astern, put the gunsight on the target and simply held the firing button down until all his ammunition was exhausted. There were hits on the fuselage and all return fire stopped but the E/A disappeared into cloud in a steep spiral and contact was lost. Sqn Ldr Pleasance finished his patrol stint and returned to Wittering to claim a probable. However he was advised later by Happisburgh CHL station that the E/A was last plotted by them at 3,000 feet, five miles out to sea, flying very slowly and then the plots ceased abruptly. So Harold Pleasance may have traded his 240 shells and 1492 m/g rounds for a kill after all.

  Ten months would elapse before 25 Squadron registered another kill.

  There is perhaps no better indicator of the reduced activity by the Luftwaffe during that summer than to point out that even Plt Off Richard Stevens was unable to get the enemy in his sights again until October 16. Detached to Coltishall, he was ordered to patrol the outer swept channel where at 19.00 hours his eagle eyes spotted a Ju88, which he attacked and shot down into the sea fifty miles east of Great Yarmouth. He saw more Ju88s but had run out of ammunition so, after trying unsuccessfully to home other 151 Squadron aircraft onto the enemy he had to head back to Wittering where he landed at 19.30 hours.

  During a similar patrol in the evening of October 31, Ian McRitchie and air gunner Plt Off Sampson tangled with a gaggle of four Ju88s twenty miles east of Great Yarmouth with similar success. Sampson shot down one bomber into the sea and the others dumped their bombs and beat a hasty retreat. McRitchie caught up with one of these and during some hectic manoeuvring at ranges of between 100 and 150 yards, Sampson scored many hits on it before his guns jammed. Made of sterner stuff and perhaps feeling there was nothing to lose, the pilot of this Junkers now decided to take on McRitchie. Turning on him, the bomber made a head-on pass with all guns blazing at the Defiant, which was flying just 80 feet above the waves. As it passed the fighter – fortunately without scoring any hits on it – Sampson managed to put in another burst from one gun as it headed in the general direction of Holland. McRitchie caught up with it again and Sampson, having cleared his guns, scored more hits with a four-second burst before they all jammed once more. Now, dangerously close to the Dutch coast and with faulty guns McRitchie reluctantly broke off this fifteen-minute running battle and flew back to Wittering to claim one Ju88 destroyed and one damaged.

  With the onset of winter weather, enemy air activity slackened off even further. The Coltishall detachment of Alex McRitchie and Albert Beale scored the only success of the month when they destroyed a Ju88 in a head-on clash above a convoy off Great Yarmouth on November 15. Despite this minimal level of enemy air activity, 151 Squadron lost no less than six aircrew in four weeks. Sgt Howard Godsmark died in a flying accident on November 12, Sgts Victor Jee (pilot) and Bill Bainbridge (air gunner) went missing in Defiant AA423 in the North Sea on the 15th, Sgt Lammin was reported missing on the 17th and Sgts Anthony Mills and Royce Gazzard failed to return from a convoy patrol on December 14, all a tragic reminder that night fighting was still a dangerous business.

  1941 was the year in which the RAF night air defence organisation established itself as a force to be reckoned with and by the end of that year, its spearhead consisted of nine squadrons operating Beaufighters, six operating Defiants, ten flights of Turbinlite Havocs and one squadron with standard Havocs. RAF Wittering held a pivotal position on the route to the Midlands and 25 and 151 Squadrons policed The Wash corridor, until the former moved out to Ballyhalbert in January 1942. There were, of course, engagements not covered here and others by squadrons covering nearby sectors in a similar way but to all intents and purposes, the Hun had been swept from this part of the sky. . . for a while.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mosquitoes Bite and Beaufighters Punch

  Almost a year would elapse before the Luftwaffe returned in strength for the next phase of their attacks on the Midlands, this time with Kampfgeschwader 2 (KG2) – the Holzhammer Gruppe – in the van. From Apr
il until September/October 1942, Dornier Do217s spearheaded the notorious Baedeker air raids against historical British towns and cities. Mounted in retaliation for the RAF’s escalating attacks on the great cities of Germany, these raids were stimulated in particular by those upon the Baltic ports of Lübeck and Rostock in March and April 1942. Dornier Do217s of KG2, together with other units, were heavily involved in the Luftwaffe plan but by the end of that summer would, once again, suffer heavy losses to the RAF’s night defences.

  Almost coinciding with the beginning of the Baedeker phase, 151 Squadron – still based at Wittering – became only the second squadron to re-equip with the de Havilland Mosquito NF II and made its first Mosquito patrol on April 30. The last of 151’s pilots went solo on the Mossie on June 20 and that day its diarist recorded confidently that, “the whole squadron can now be left to its own devices”, and in common with other night fighter units, soon got to grips with the enemy once more.

  Plt Off Wain in DD608 and Flt Lt Pennington in DD628 reported some AI contacts in their patrols on the night of May 28/29 but it was during enemy mining sorties to The Wash and anti-shipping raids in the Great Yarmouth area on May 29/30 that the squadron’s first real engagement occurred with the new fighter. First up from Wittering were Pilot Officer John Wain and Flt Sgt Thomas ‘Jock’ Grieve in DD608 who tackled a Dornier 217 but could only claim it as damaged. The same night the A Flight commander, Flt Lt Denis Pennington and his RO Flt Sgt David Donnett in DD628, intercepted and fired at what he thought was a Heinkel He111 out over the North Sea but spirited return fire made him break off with an inconclusive result for him, too.