Lancaster Men

by Peter Rees

  Berlin did not burn like other German cities, and the aerial bombing campaign there has been rated as a failure by some historians. However, taking the war to the heart of Germany had strategic benefits, slowing armaments production and forcing Nazi leaders to divert resources and manpower that were badly needed on the front lines. Unstoppable in the first two years of war, by early 1944 the Germans were beginning to suffer serious reverses.

  Rollo Kingsford-Smith was one bomber pilot who saw the Battle of Berlin as a strategic win for the Allies. Bomber Command learned a lot from it, and it gave the British public the satisfaction of targeting Hitler and his henchmen where they lived. ‘Bomber Command was the only English force that was actually fighting the Germans [on their territory] in those days [before the Normandy invasion], and we were striking deep into German airspace,’ Rollo said. But the cost was the loss of men like Jack Mitchell and Bruce Foskett.

  21

  TROUBLE ON THE BASE

  In April 1944, Rollo Kingsford-Smith, commander of 463 Squadron, and his mate Sam Balmer, commander of 467 Squadron, noticed something odd. The supply of replacements to their squadrons was drying up. In one month, 463 Squadron had lost twenty-one airmen to enemy action. Another twenty-one who had survived to the end of their tour were posted elsewhere. Still another crew was posted to the Pathfinders. Yet new crews were not coming in.

  Always under pressure to put the maximum number of aircraft into the air, Rollo and Sam needed men not only to replace those killed or transferred but to give badly fatigued men a rest and give trainees extra instruction before going into battle. Now, they were forced to detail men for operations who should have stayed on the ground, a practice that only increased the losses from casualties.

  What intrigued them was that nearby RAF squadrons were not suffering the same shortages. Moreover, their replacement crews often included Australians, who Rollo and Sam naturally felt should have been coming to Waddington. Inquiries up the RAF chain of command drew inconclusive and vague answers. Not willing to let the matter go, Rollo obtained forty-eight hours’ special leave on 9 April 1944 and flew to London. At RAAF Headquarters at Kodak House, he made vigorous protests to Air Vice-Marshal Henry Wrigley and Group Captain Geoff Hartnell, the Senior Air Staff Officer, but neither man would commit to taking any remedial action. He left London on 11 April bitterly disappointed, writing in his diary, ‘Didn’t achieve much.’

  He arrived back at Waddington just in time to brief 463 Squadron for an attack on German factories at Aachen. Although other units lost aircraft on this raid, it was a short and uneventful trip for Rollo’s squadron. Throughout April, the squadron flew ten operations as ‘D-Day’ for the invasion of Europe approached. Their targets included railways, which the Germans would need to move armoured divisions to the site of the planned invasion. One attack was on the Juvisy railway yards in Paris. ‘We went in fairly low, took our time, and the next day’s photos by the reconnaissance aircraft showed the bombing was the most accurate yet achieved,’ Rollo recalled. The squadron lost another two crews that month, one shot down and another reaching the end of its tour. The shortage of replacements was hurting more and more.

  On 13 April Rollo visited No. 5 Group RAF Headquarters to dig deeper into the mystery of the crew shortages. Wing Commander Keith Sinclair, the Staff Officer Operations—who would later edit the Melbourne Age—showed him in confidence a letter from Bomber Command Headquarters enclosing a ‘petulant message’ from the British government. The message complained about the Australian government’s recent insistence that RAAF bomber crews that had completed a tour of operations in England should return to Australia to crew the new four-engine American Liberator bombers that the RAAF was acquiring for operations against the Japanese. Reading further, Rollo quickly understood what was happening to his replacements:

  The letter stated that Bomber Command had planned to obtain another tour of operations from these [Australian crews] and their return to Australia would therefore cause some shortages. It went on to say that the shortages were to in no way affect RAF squadrons. These were to be kept to full strength by being given Australian reinforcements who would have come to 463 and 467 squadrons. The letter also pointed out that Australia had agreed [that] Australian crews would spend two years under RAF command and that repatriating some before the two years was breaking the agreement. That the agreement had been signed before Japan attacked us was ignored. That England had failed us in Singapore and seriously misled us about its military capability before the Japanese attacked, was also ignored.

  Rollo suspected that the British aircraft industry also had a role in the manpower fiddle. ‘I know they were strongly opposed to the Australians using American aircraft and would not have hesitated to pull strings to delay the crewing of the RAAF’s heavy bomber squadrons in the Pacific theatre, until Lancasters could be made available.’

  In his diary, Rollo wrote: ‘Went to H/Q 5 Group and talked to people and saw some letters and become very mad.’ He was furious with the Australian government as well as the British. He could understand Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s motives: he had to face the British voters, so he would do everything possible to minimise RAF losses, even if it meant making the Australians suffer. ‘It was my own Government, which handed over the power of life and death of Australians to another country, that upset me. Kodak House was not left off the hook and Balmer and I let Wrigley and company know how we felt.’

  On 14 April, Sam Balmer telephoned Group Captain Allan Edgar, the Senior Administrative Staff Officer at Kodak House, about the position of crews in 467 Squadron. Wrigley noted in his diary: ‘[Balmer] appears to be very disturbed about it although according to the information supplied to me yesterday by Bomber Command the position is satisfactory. I have instructed Balmer to give me a detailed statement of the position from his point of view so I can take it up with Bomber Command. If I cannot then straighten out the position I shall have to go to Waddington and examine it on the spot.’

  On 16 April Wrigley, Hartnell and Edgar visited Waddington. To Rollo, the visit showed that Overseas Headquarters was ‘now taking our appalling situation seriously’. Wrigley wrote in his diary for 16 April:

  As mentioned in Friday’s entry, Balmer rang and said he was having trouble in getting the requisite number of crews to keep his squadron up to strength. I had been discussing certain aspects of this matter with Capel of Bomber Command and, in view of Balmer’s information, I decided I must go and look into the matter on the spot. It was just as well that I did for I found that this was not their only trouble.

  A new Station Commander at Waddington had been appointed: the eccentric but engaging Group Captain David Bonham-Carter, who had been an RAF test pilot before the war. Wrigley was deeply unimpressed by Bonham-Carter, writing that he did ‘not even approach the standard of his predecessor and his remarks and actions are already having an adverse effect on our two squadrons’. Wrigley proposed approaching the Bomber Command personnel chief and ‘suggesting he must go’.

  If this has no effect I shall have to demand his replacement and, as the only two squadrons on the station are RAAF, I intend recommending Balmer takes over. In this I think I shall have the support of the Base Commander, Air Commodore [Arthur] Hesketh, who found himself in a somewhat awkward position today in that he had to give Bonham-Carter some consideration although he said enough to convince me that he feels much the same as Balmer and Kingsford-Smith do.

  This amounted to an avowal of no-confidence by the RAAF’s most senior officer in London against a key RAF appointment. There was now trouble on the base on two counts, but Wrigley’s hands would soon be tied by circumstances beyond his control.

  After Wrigley and Edgar’s visit to Waddington, things started to move. They and Wrigley’s administrative assistant discussed the question of crews for RAAF bomber squadrons, and after checking their figures they all went to see Air Vice-Marshal John Breen, who dealt with personnel issues at the Air Ministry. Wrigley dema
nded that the situation be rectified.

  In theory the situation with which we were concerned should never have arisen but, as is so frequently the case, theory and practice do not agree. Breen saw the points I made and is instructing Bomber Command that the first commitment against RAAF aircrews is to keep RAAF squadrons right up to full establishment. He hopes this will solve the problem but if it doesn’t I shall go to Bomber Command and carry on the offensive myself.

  Rollo thought the aristocratic Bonham-Carter an irreverent and lovable fellow. He was nicknamed ‘TR9’ because of his prominent hearing aid—a TR9 being a radio transmitter-receiver used in RAF planes. ‘His hearing aids always used to whistle and he was always adjusting them,’ recalled Ted Pickerd. Twenty-one-year-old Bill Purdy, who came from Sydney and had just arrived at Waddington as a pilot on 463 Squadron, remembered Bonham-Carter as ‘a delightful and friendly character but when he had had enough he pointedly switched off his now old-fashioned hearing aid and tuned you out’.

  While Rollo found Bonham-Carter exasperating, he was charmed by his many stories, such as how to go about buying a Rolls-Royce. It was no good, he told Rollo, going into the salesroom in Berkeley Square dressed up in one’s best suit ‘looking like a pox doctor’s clerk’. That would only make the salesman ignore you ‘with experienced disdain’. ‘Dress in your gardener’s old work clothes,’ he told Rollo. ‘You will immediately be recognised as a rich aristocrat, an excellent prospect, and they [the staff] will be at your feet.’

  But with the issue of RAAF crew allocations simmering, the bonhomie with Bonham-Carter was tested when the Australian High Commissioner in London, former prime minister Stanley Bruce, decided to visit Waddington. Rollo recalled Bonham-Carter saying: ‘We would like you to contact your High Commissioner and ask him to cancel his visit.’ Asked why, he replied that it would be ‘inconvenient’, as there was no spare accommodation in the officers’ mess. Rollo, who was mess president at the time, was unimpressed: ‘I knew there was accommodation and Bonham-Carter knew that I knew. So he squirmed when he had to relay such a message to me.’

  The unfolding situation appalled Rollo: a former Australian prime minister and now high commissioner of Britain’s first ally in the war was to be told it was inconvenient for him to visit two RAAF squadrons that were suffering grievous losses. Making this even more insulting was the fact that Bruce was a noted Anglophile.

  I could stomach the letter I had seen in 5 Group Headquarters but not this put down of Australia, our representatives in England and my men. I was further annoyed by the knowledge that the Churchill Government was bending over backwards to praise and be nice to the few remnants of European Forces that were in England. These people were brave but weak allies. They were treated this way firstly because they were European and secondly they came from independent sovereign governments. On the other hand Australians were still [regarded as] colonials.

  Despite Bonham-Carter’s reservations, Bruce visited on schedule, on 19 April. Rollo’s living space was relatively roomy and comfortable, as he had the main bedroom in the second-largest house of the station’s pre-war married officers’ quarters.

  I met Mr Bruce on his arrival and offered him my room. He asked me where I would sleep and I replied that as the squadron would be flying that night I would be up for most of the time and I would rest on the very comfortable armchair in my room. I had thought of Bruce as rather a stuffy and pompous old chap so I will always remember his response, which was, ‘Wing Commander, you need every bit of sleep you can obtain. You’ll take the bed, I’ll have the armchair.’

  But Bonham-Carter had had enough of game-playing. Contrary to whatever instructions he had received, he made Bruce welcome and found him a room.

  Bruce also went to Binbrook, where there were rumblings among 460 Squadron’s Australian ground staff, most of whom had left Australia in July 1941. Having spent nearly three years in England, they were anxious for a system that would enable them to return home. Many were worried about their marriages, while others were keen to join the fight against the Japanese. Bruce, accompanied by Hughie Edwards and Perc Rodda, met with the ground staff in the briefing room, skilfully fielding queries and complaints with what Perc described as ‘a whole heap of political platitudes that didn’t mean a thing’.

  Eventually things got very, very rowdy which Hughie couldn’t control, and finally somebody from the back of the briefing room yelled out to Bruce, ‘Ah, you wouldn’t know you stupid old bastard, you’re only the armchair commander of the Kingsway Commandos’ [at Kodak House]. Bruce with this, picked up his hat, walked out of the briefing room in high dudgeon, followed by Group Captain Edwards with a bit of a smirk on his face, leaving the rest of us to look after ourselves. I called the meeting to order and just told them to stay put until such time as the VIPs got out of the road and then I said, ‘Well piss off and do whatever you have to do.’

  A couple of days later, Hughie Edwards called Perc up to his office to tell him that Overseas Headquarters had written to demand an apology for the insult to Bruce. Perc drafted the letter, expressing regret but also explaining that the ground staff were extremely concerned about events in Australia and that some of them had family problems. Their anxieties had risen to the surface ‘and regrettably things were said that ought not to have been said,’ he wrote. There the matter rested—for the moment.

  22

  NO EASY ANSWER

  Ted Pickerd shared a room at Waddington with an RAF air gunner Flight Lieutenant W.R. Norden-Hare, who was often referred to as ‘Jugged Hare’. A pessimistic type, he thought he had been lucky to get through his own tour of operations and kept telling Ted he would not complete his. Ted found him trying, but put up with him. That all changed on the night of his thirtieth op, the last one of his tour. Hours before the 8 May 1944 raid was to start, Ted received a Red Cross parcel. Inside was a fruitcake, which he put in his wardrobe.

  The sortie by twenty-two 463 and 467 Squadron Lancasters to an airfield and seaplane base at Brest, in north-western France, went off successfully, and all the aircraft from Waddington returned safely. Wanting to celebrate the end of the tour, Ted offered to share his cake with his comrades. ‘We got some beer and we were going to go up to my room to get the fruitcake. When we got up there I couldn’t find it, nothing in the wardrobe, but on the pillow was a great big yellow balloon with a face on it and a mouth turned down and it said, “I know the Grim Harvester got you at one [degree] east tonight.” ’

  Annoyed but not to be denied his celebration, Ted went out with his crew for a few beers. When he got back, Norden-Hare was there. He explained to Ted that he had been certain Ted would be killed. ‘I didn’t want the Committee of Adjustment [the unit that collected lost or killed airmen’s belongings for repatriation] to get that fruitcake,’ Jug explained, ‘so I took it and I’ve had it with my friends.’ For Ted, that was the last straw. He moved to another room.

  As the intensity of the raids increased and the losses mounted, fear took hold in a variety of ways. It might give rise to gloomy forebodings, as in Norden-Hare’s case, or prompt men to engage in superstitious rituals to ensure that they were not next to ‘go for a Burton’ or ‘get the chop’. Doug Hawker didn’t go for any of that. When the twenty-seven-year-old pilot from Canterbury, New Zealand, arrived at RAF East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, in April 1944 to join 630 Squadron, he lugged his kitbag into the officers’ hut to find three RAF officers sitting on one of the six beds, talking. Doug took a quick look around and, seeing a vacant bed in the corner, headed for it. One of the officers looked up, and said with some alarm, ‘You’re not going to sleep in that bed, are you?’ Doug replied that it would do him nicely. ‘No, don’t sleep there, that’s the jinxed bed,’ the officer said. ‘Everyone who sleeps there goes for a Burton.’ Unperturbed, Doug threw his gear on the bed, saying, ‘It’s probably time for some changes to be made.’ Doug survived the war—but every bed except his would have a new occupant, some more than once, as their various o
ccupants went missing, either killed in action or made prisoners of war.

  Peter Dale, the 467 Squadron rear gunner, was acutely aware of the ‘sudden quiet that settled on our crew’ in the back of the bus each time they drove onto the tarmac to board their bomber. He noticed the ‘concern and fear’ showing on their faces. ‘You could read their eyes,’ he recalled. ‘This was where being a bush larrikin I would crack a joke to bring the gloom and silence to an end. I would say, “Never mind, I’ll shoot the gremlins off the wings tonight including the Grim Reaper as well.” Their eyes would begin to smile and bravado would set in again by the time we pulled up beside our hopefully lucky aircraft to be on our way again.’

  Fear could play real havoc once crews were airborne. For some, fear fuelled a determination to press on, but for others it led to a growing reluctance to join the battle. Some pilots would drop their bombs as they crossed the North Sea or the English Channel, then turn for home, usually justifying their actions by claiming they’d had a mechanical problem.

  Rollo Kingsford-Smith was all too aware how fear in a pilot could seriously degrade his usefulness to operations. A 463 Squadron pilot named Charlie was a case in point. On the night of 23 December 1943, Charlie and his crew turned back from a raid to Berlin because of a failure of the oxygen system. On a sortie to Stettin two weeks later, they were forced to jettison their bombs when their Lancaster iced up. They flew again to Berlin on 30 January and 15 February, but the second flight had to be aborted when the engine overheated. Their next two flights, to Leipzig on 19 February, and to Stuttgart on 1 March, also had to be aborted because of engine trouble and a malfunctioning tail turret. On the night of 15 March they headed for Stuttgart again and actually completed the raid. Charlie and his crew had so much trouble with their aircraft that the ground crew reckoned the pilot had ‘a gremlin in his pocket’—slang for being prone to problems.