Lancaster Men

by Peter Rees

  For others, medals were of no account. Julius ‘Jules’ Epstein, a Pathfinder Force navigator from Sydney who flew sixty-seven ops, was awarded a DFC and Bar for his service. When his children asked how he had won his DFCs, his stock answer was, ‘They were on the uniform when I bought it.’ Jules was dismissive of ‘gong hunters’ and shared the view of Pathfinder Force head Don Bennett that a Pathfinder Force emblem on one’s uniform was honour enough, and that ‘the only VCs in Pathfinder Force are to be posthumous ones’.

  Medals aside, however, many RAAF Bomber Command veterans felt that their contribution to winning the war was ignored or not given its due weight. The unveiling of the Bomber Command memorial in London went some way to rectifying the injustice, but even today there is no real consensus on the overall value of the strategic bomber offensive to the Allied victory in Europe. In the first years of the war, Bomber Command’s ideal targets were too far away for its aircraft to reach, so many of the early raids failed to meet expectations. Nonetheless, the slow but continuing growth of Bomber Command’s strengths and capabilities, to which were later added those of the United States Eighth Air Force, did do enormous damage to the German war machine. The Anglo-American bomber offensive slowly but surely pushed the Nazi war economy from the offensive to the defensive. By 1944, one-third of all German artillery production consisted of anti-aircraft guns, while an estimated two million Germans were engaged in anti-aircraft defence, in rebuilding shattered factories and infrastructure, and in attempts to repair and compensate for the destruction.

  For Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, the real importance of the air war was that it opened a second front long before the invasion of Europe. ‘That front was the skies over Germany. Defence against air attack required the production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers,’ he wrote. This was, he added, ‘the greatest lost battle for Germany of the whole war’.

  It is this legacy that Rollo Kingsford-Smith, Ted Pickerd, Peter Isaacson and many others fought to protect in the post-war years with their vocal defences of Bomber Command. As Peter Isaacson put it, ‘Neither the wrongs inflicted by the Germans, nor the devastation and death caused by Bomber Command make either of them right but Bomber Command were trying to right the wrongs wrought by the elected leaders of Germany who were the cause of the destruction of their cities and the death of its citizens.’ With this, the Stadt Museum in Dresden clearly agrees.

  That is not to say that the bombing of German cities did not prey on the minds of airmen. Ernest Hyde, a Sydneysider who served as a bomb aimer with 617 Squadron RAF, was among them. He loved European culture and greatly regretted the need for the bombing campaign. On his deathbed in December 1996, he asked one of his daughters, Deirdre, ‘What do you think about the bombing flights during the war?’ She replied, ‘I think they did what they thought was right at the time.’ Deirdre remembered that he seemed relieved. He relaxed a bit and said, ‘Yes, I think so too.’

  45

  RETURN TO THE SUGARLOAF

  Jack Foran returned home with a new bride. He married the young Irish WAAF Paddy McManus not long after VE Day, and took her back to the family farm at Gilgandra into an environment vastly different from the industrial tenements of Belfast. In the years that followed, Paddy bravely endured the loneliness, the heat, and the mice and rat plagues of the Australian bush.

  Meanwhile, Jack endured nightmares of his time above the skies of Europe; sometimes his screams woke Paddy and their children. She understood, for she had prayed for him each time he flew. She knew the agony of waiting for him to return, of phoning the station to find out if he was all right. Once, Jack came back with engines on fire and the Lancaster full of holes. Another time, his plane, fully loaded with bombs, crashed at the end of the runway on take-off. More than once, he and his crew went missing or were nearly shot down.

  Yet these young men were up [in the sky] again the next night. No one complained. No matter how they were or how sick they felt. No one wanted the stigma of LMF, so they just carried on and not a word of complaint. It is easy to see why so many of these men turned to booze to try and forget what was happening . . . Life for them was not easy and no matter what anyone says it certainly wasn’t ‘a piece of cake’. We who waited for the aircraft to return knew a terrible sense of dread each time—so many who didn’t return, young boys really. My memories are of young men, Aussie men, laughing, dancing, singing and enjoying the moment, never to be heard of again. Shot down or K.I.A. something we didn’t want to think about. They were young, handsome and full of life.

  Fear was something that every airman had to confront every time he left on operations. Wry humour helped them cope with the reality: ‘What do you want to be after the war?’—‘A returned airman.’ Tom Hopkinson, the 463 Squadron mid-upper gunner, was ‘shit scared’ on his second raid and ‘we had a couple of shaky do’s after that’, but he refused to let his apprehensions get the better of him: ‘I must have just become resigned to the fact that we were going to get killed.’ Blue Connelly, the wireless operator with 57 Squadron RAF, never let the issue enter his mind, but said: ‘When you came back and they were clearing up someone’s bed near you, it was a little bit undermining when they had been sleeping with you in the hut the night before and then they were dead and gone.’ To 463 Squadron pilot Allan Stutter, who flew thirty-six raids and was awarded a DFC, ‘There wasn’t much point worrying about death—death was probably a lot better than a lot of the alternatives.’

  Pilot Austin Dowling, of 460 Squadron, accepted that friends would die and that he also might easily die. ‘So, when someone was killed, I always felt that I had got a sort of reprieve, expressed as, “It’s not me this time, I’ve got to be even more careful and alert. Look what’s happened to so and so, and he was [a] competent pilot.”’

  As the losses mounted, not only through my tour but of all aircrew who had started their initial training with me, it was made more and more clear to me that I was going to need a lot of luck as well as care to survive. When I reached this stage, each death made me just less healthy than I had been. I developed two tics—one in the eye and one in a thumb—and these showed themselves more clearly after I had seen yet another friend shot down.

  Roy Chopping, a 460 Squadron pilot who was awarded a DFC, believed that with seven men in one plane there was ‘no way one could be a coward and show fear, but I was frightened all right’. But there was one incident that stayed with Roy that concerned the death of his mate, Pilot Officer Peter Fontaine, who was shot down over Stuttgart on 19 October 1944.

  I promised Peter Fontaine that, should anything happen to him, I would look up his parents in Fremantle and just present myself as a friend of his, to tell them what I could of his passing. He made the same promise to me. For years, maybe five I suppose, I could not bring myself to fulfil that promise. But then one day, I found myself in the right place and in the right frame of mind to do so.

  Peter’s mother met me and informed me that Peter’s father had died the year before, never having recovered from the news of his son’s death. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.

  Eric Silbert had also been one of Peter Fontaine’s mates. On his return to Australia, he resumed working in the family business when one day Peter Fontaine’s parents came in. ‘I walked up quickly and, smiling, greeted them, when old man Fontaine instantly said: “You did not have the decency to come and see us.” He was right and I was ashamed. They were still setting a place for Peter at the table each night.’

  Jim Rowland was left with a permanent ‘aching unease’ about the fate of his crew. “Survivor guilt” gripped him. He searched his mind many times a day after the fatal night of his collision above Hanau, asking himself if there was anything else he could have done to save them, to get them out of the crippled aircraft as it plummeted earthwards. Though he could
find nothing, the question nagged at him for the rest of his life. The worst was seeing the widow of one of his crew, Jim Sindall, for whom he had been best man only months before. In November 1945 Jim Sindall’s father wrote to Jim, saying that he feared it was too late to go on hoping that his son had somehow survived the crash. It was the uncertainty of not knowing how Jim and the others had died that was ‘bloody grim’, he added. Jim Rowland found it hard writing to all the parents of his crew. ‘At these times I wished I had perished with them, for I think by now I accepted that they must have died, either in the aircraft or in that black forest with the dogs, or in a town somewhere at the hands of the locals,’ he said.

  In early July 1945, a few weeks after the war ended, Jim received a letter from Albert Holz, the Frenchman who had occupied the cell alongside him in Germany. Albert had not forgotten the details Jim had given him before the two Luftwaffe officers took him from the prison, ostensibly to be shot. Albert had been desperately trying to find out what had happened to Jim ever since, even writing to the childhood home in Armidale that Jim had talked about. Before confirming that Jim was alive, Albert had brought his case to the attention of American authorities looking into war crimes. Now he wrote of his happiness that Jim had survived.

  I was told in the end you must have been shot. Fortunately for you—and I am very pleased and happy myself—you weren’t, nor was I. I remained in prison in Offenbach until the arrival of the Americans by whom I was freed. Like you I say—what joy!

  My dear James, I would be happy, very happy, to see you in person, and to be able to embrace you after all the troubles we have been through. Perhaps it will be possible for us to meet again, since we both narrowly escaped death.

  I intend to go back to Offenbach in a few days time to inform the American authorities that you are alive, because the police officer who brought you to Hanau that Monday morning at 4 a.m. has been arrested on your account, but he was very polite, and he deserves to be released since you are still alive.

  And now you are smoking cigarettes which are not too strong for you. But the prettiest girl cannot provide what she doesn’t have. You and I were smoking what we had, tobacco from Serbia rolled up in newspaper. I made what I could and I would always do so. Cell 31 was yours, and cell 30 was mine.

  I hope always to see you once more while I’m alive, this time while we are both free men. Quickly send me your news.

  In the years that followed, Jim’s daughter believes that they did meet to talk over old times. For Jim, an illustrious career followed in the RAAF. He became chief test pilot at Laverton air base and rose to the rank of Air Marshal, serving as Chief of Air Staff from 1975 until his retirement in 1979. He was knighted in 1977 and in 1981 became Governor of New South Wales. Perhaps Una Brown’s prophecy was right.

  When news of that appointment broke, Jim received a letter posted from Brisbane on 10 February 1981 that he later kept with Albert Holz’s letter in a tattered leather satchel. It was from one of the Luftwaffe officers who had saved him from the Gestapo, and who had migrated to Brisbane ten years earlier.

  Dear Sir James Rowland,

  Just this few lines. I am glad you survive the war. As I have [been] reading about you in the Brisbane Telegraph I could remember you very well. I was one of the Luftwaffe officers who make your rescue from the Gestapo headquarters. I hope you will be serving this country well. I come to this country about 10 years ago. I am doing well in this country. I like it very much.

  The signature scrawled at the bottom was indecipherable. The writer said he wanted to remain anonymous as he did not want any publicity. But Jim—who died in 1999—clearly appreciated the good wishes from a former enemy who, although their contact thirty-six years earlier had been fleeting, had saved his life amid the maelstrom that had consumed so many fine young Australians.

  Jack Mitchell was just one of the men who did not come back. After he and his crew disappeared over Berlin, the Secretary of the Department of the Air wrote to their families on 2 February 1945 saying that all were officially presumed to have died on 22 January 1944. Later it would be established that the aircraft crashed at Eichendorf, about eighteen kilometres south of Magdeburg, early that day, on its return flight. The Germans buried the seven men in Eichendorf with full military honours. After the war, their bodies were exhumed and reinterred in Berlin, in the British War Cemetery, Heerstrasse.

  It appears that the families did not learn where the men were shot down or where they were buried until nearly five years later, in December 1948. The sister of one of Jack’s comrades, Ken Francis, wrote to the Mitchells about her sense of loss.

  It is very difficult to come to terms with having a loved one posted as ‘missing’ and then ‘missing believed killed’. There is no end to it, no body, no funeral, no goodbye, and of course letters kept coming for some time afterwards because of the slowness of the mails at this time. My father knowing more about the war than we did, accepted the finality of it much sooner than we could. My mother especially had great difficulty, understandably, in finally accepting the fact that Ken would not be coming back.

  The stress and intense sadness caused by their disappearances and deaths contributed to the early deaths of some parents and undermined the health of others. While Jack Mitchell’s father, Cliff, grieved, he was determined that his son’s memory should not be lost. Without telling his wife and daughter, Cliff climbed the Sugarloaf hill in Tasmania where Jack had driven home a stick just before he left for the war. In place of the stick, Cliff erected a wooden cross. Later, a friend carved an inscription onto a wooden shield that Cliff placed at the foot of the cross, to the memory of ‘Jack Mitchell and his gallant crew killed in action in Germany 22 Jan 1944’.

  Some years after Cliff’s death in 1960, the original cross deteriorated and fell down. To preserve Jack’s memory, local residents made a new steel cross, more than three metres high and set in concrete surrounded by the stones that he had placed around the base of his stick. Every second year, in the evening of 22 January a commemorative service is conducted at the Sugarloaf for Jack and his crew. It would be hard to imagine a more isolated memorial, and its loneliness underlines the poignancy of the deaths of young Australians like Jack in the skies of wartorn Europe. A piper’s lament drifts down the valley from the hill on which Jack stood and looked into the unknown before eagerly heading halfway around the world to join Bomber Command.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The genesis of this book lies with Kathie Pickerd, whose stories of the exploits of her father, Air Commodore Ted Pickerd, and his mates encouraged me to explore the extraordinary Bomber Command saga. Ted Pickerd was a modest man who wanted to downplay his efforts; rather, he said, all those who flew with Bomber Command deserved recognition. Ted was a wonderful source of knowledge in the four years that I worked on this book. Not only did he share his experiences with me, but smoothed the passage for me to interview other Bomber Command veterans and their families. As well, he set aside an afternoon each week for several months to meet me at the Australian War Memorial’s Research Centre to pore over records. Even as he approached the age of ninety, the sharpness of his eye for detail and recall of events was impressive. Sadly, Ted died in August 2012.

  It was through Ted that I met Rollo Kingsford-Smith and his wife, Grace. Rollo, too, generously shared his memories. Even in the twilight of his life it was easy to see the drive and determination that made him such a successful leader of 463 Squadron RAAF. After Rollo’s death, Grace kindly offered me access to records and photos.

  There are many other people whose help has been much appreciated: Bomber Command veterans such as Don Browning, Keith Campbell, Angus Cameron, ‘Blue’ Connelly, Tom Hopkinson, Don Huxtable, Peter Isaacson, Bill Purdy, Eddie Ward and Allan Stutter.

  And then there was the late Laurie Field, a 460 Squadron RAAF veteran who conducted voluminous research in the 1980s with the aim of writing a book about the squadron, only to die before doing so. His papers at the Australian W
ar Memorial provide a comprehensive account of the Australians in the squadron. Laurie also recorded interviews with other veterans for the AWM. I’d like to thank his daughter, Mrs Sue Haining, for her permission to access these files and interviews. They are an invaluable resource.

  Thanks are due to Ross Pearson, a veteran in his own right as a Halifax wireless air gunner, who gave permission to quote from the stories he accumulated in his book, Australians at War in the Air 1939–1945, volume one. I’d also like to acknowledge Colin Burgess, who gave permission for me to use material from his book, Australia’s Dambusters.

  Anni Rowland-Campbell provided access to the memoirs and records of her father, Sir James Rowland, as did Enid Eliot in relation to the memoirs and records of her late husband, Noel. Bomber Command veteran Gerald ‘Gel’ McPherson and his wife, Fay, shared family records. I’m again indebted to Margaret Stibbs, who previously provided material for my earlier books The Other Anzacs and Desert Boys and on this occasion gave me access to the personal memoir of Bomber Command written by her cousin Alick Roberts. Bernadette Foran, too, shared her family records, including the moving letter her mother, Paddy, wrote about the loss of Australian airmen in Bomber Command. I’d also like to thank Audrey Rodda for sharing the records of her husband, Perc and Deirdre Macpherson for sharing her memories of her father, Ernest Hyde.

  Records held by the Australian War Memorial are invaluable in a work such as this, and I would like to extend my gratitude to the staff at the AWM’s Research Centre for their help and advice. I would also like to thank the AWM for permission to quote from various sound archives.