At Holme-on-Spalding Moor F/Lt Bill Wedderburn’s 101 Squadron crew had a lucky escape in a raid on Bochum, their third operation. They were late arriving and decided to take a ‘short-cut’ over Essen, thus finding themselves the only aircraft over the most heavily defended city in the world. They were coned by searchlights and bracketed by flak bursts but, by diving steeply, they managed to escape and, despite the damage suffered to their aircraft, N-Nuts, bombed the target and limped back to Yorkshire. So badly damaged was their aircraft it was struck off and ten nights later they flew in a new N-Nuts and went on to become the first complete Lancaster crew to finish a tour in 101, flying their final operation to Munich in September.
Bad weather gave the bomber crews and the citizens of the Ruhr some respite in early June but Düsseldorf was the target for another huge raid on the night of June 11-12. It was to be another bad night for the men of 12 Squadron with five Lancasters being shot down and only three men out of the 35 on board surviving. 100 Squadron lost two of the 26 aircraft it sent and another flight commander, S/Ldr Jim Manahan, a Canadian who was serving with the RAF. Another aircraft lost that night was a Wellington from 199 Squadron. Two nights later P/O Bill Sawdy and his crew failed to return to Ingham from a mining trip, the squadron’s last casualties in its time with 1 Group. Within a matter of days it had moved out to Lakenheath where it joined 3 Group and converted to Stirlings. It was replaced at Ingham by 305 Squadron, which moved in from Hemswell, which was closing for runway construction.
Another squadron on the move was 101 which flew its final operation from Holme-on-Spalding Moor to Bochum on the night of June 12-13, losing one Lancaster in the process. The expansion of the all-Canadian 6 Group meant a reallocation of airfields in Yorkshire, the remaining 1 Group squadrons all moving south into Lincolnshire. Two days later the squadron’s 32 Lancasters (101 was by now a three-flight squadron) were used as flying removal trucks, everything possible being packed in for the trip across the Humber to Ludford Magna. Holme had never been a popular spot for 101’s air and ground crews but, if anything, first impressions of Ludford were that it was even worse. Ludford sits at almost the highest point on the Lincolnshire Wolds astride the Market Rasen-Louth road. It was still far from finished and F/Sgt Dick Schofield, who had joined the squadron in May, later recalled that when they arrived no perimeter or runway lights had been installed and initially crews had to rely on flares for taking off and landing with a few glim lights in place at ‘dangerous corners’ on the perimeter track, which aircraft had to negotiate using their landing lights and by shining Aldis lamps out of the bomb aimer’s window. On some occasions the transport section was called upon to illuminate runways with the headlights of their vehicles. Accommodation was just as bad in the first few weeks, with some of the ground crew sleeping in tents while the lucky ones bedded down in the building destined to become the camp cinema. What Nissen huts that were ready were found to be infested with earwigs, the only cure being a thick coating of engine oil ‘painted’ around the hut bases. Ludford was to become notorious for its mud and duckboards abounded. Shortages or not, 101 was quickly back in business and flew to Cologne on June 16-17, losing its first aircraft from Ludford a few nights later over Krefeld. The squadron was to lose two more aircraft in an attack on Gelsenkirchen, six men from one aircraft drowning after bailing out over the Dutch coast only for the wind to blow their parachutes out to sea, and two more early in July in the second of a series of three attacks on Cologne. The flight engineer on one of these aircraft was Sgt Arthur Sharman who, at 39, was one of the oldest members of 101’s aircrew. The flight engineer in the second, Sgt Glyn Lloyd, was just 17 and one of the youngest men to be killed on Bomber Command operations.
103 Squadron’s flamboyant Belgian pilot, F/Lt Victor Van Rolleghem, received an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross from 1 Group’s AOC, AVM Rice, at a ceremony at Elsham. Van Rolleghem was an extraordinary character who completed 70 operations in two spells with 103 Squadron, winning a bar to his DFC and a Distinguished Service Order. On a more prosaic note, the trophy was to go to the station’s soccer team, winner of the inter-group tournament. (Elsham Wolds Association)
It was during these Cologne raids that the Luftwaffe introduced new tactics, introducing single-engined fighters in what became known as Wilde Sau operations, the fighters being given the freedom to operate high above target cities where they hoped to spot bombers illuminated below by target indicators and fires. In the areas they operated flak was limited to 15,000 feet giving them the chance to attack bombers as they crossed the target area.
460’s Squadron K2 – The Nazi Killer, pictured at Binbrook. (Author’s collection)
Five 1 Group aircraft were lost on a raid on Gelsenkirchen on the night of June 25-26, three from 101 and two each from 166 and 103 Squadrons. There was only one survivor from the 101 Squadron aircraft and two from the pair of 166 Squadron Wellingtons lost. Remarkably, eight of the 14 men on the two Lancasters from Elsham were to survive, among them a man who was to find post-war fame as an actor and singer. Cy Grant was born in British Guiana and joined the RAF in 1941, one of 400 men from the West Indies who enlisted during a recruiting drive aimed at filling gaps in the ranks of the air force. He trained as a navigator and joined 103 Squadron as a pilot officer in May, 1943. He was part of F/Lt Alton Langille’s crew and they were on their fourth operation when the Lancaster was attacked by a night fighter over Holland. The rear gunner, Sgt Joe Addison, had shouted a warning but the fighter got in a sustained burst which set one of the engines on fire. F/Lt Langille put the Lancaster into a dive in an attempt to extinguish the fire but the flames spread. By the time they reached the Dutch coast it was clear they were not going to be able to get back across the North Sea in the face of a strong head wind so the pilot turned the aircraft round and ordered his crew to bail out. As they scrambled to get clear the Lancaster blew up, killing Joe Addison and the flight engineer, Sgt Ron Hollywood. Grant landed in a cornfield and spent most of the next day hiding and planning what he hoped would be his escape to Spain. But he realised that, as a 6ft 2ins West Indian, his chances were limited. He was later helped by a Dutch farm worker and his wife only to be turned over to the Germans by a policeman who spotted him near the farm. He was to spend the rest of the war in a series of PoW camps and was once pictured in a German newspaper, the caption sourly describing him as an RAF flier of ‘indeterminate race’.
There was drama at Binbrook early in July as 460 prepared to send 26 Lancasters to Cologne. All the aircraft had been fuelled and bombs loaded when a final inspection was made. It was during this that an electrical fault caused the entire bomb load involving a 4,000lb ‘cookie’, two 500lb bombs and numerous canisters of incendiaries to fall from one of the Lancasters. A working party tried to move the incendiaries away from the aircraft and the blast bomb but by then some of the incendiaries had ignited and set fire to the aircraft. It was far too dangerous to try to salvage the Lancaster and everyone was ordered to clear the area. The station tannoy was used to warn all personnel to take cover and shortly afterwards the 4,000lb bomb exploded, destroying the burning aircraft and another nearby. Ivan Heath, a British rear gunner with the squadron, was checking his turret when he spotted the burning Lancaster which was on an adjoining dispersal. Realising what was about to happen, he ran for his life and had just made it to an old bomb crater on the edge of the airfield when the bombs exploded. Seven other aircraft were damaged and some minor damage was caused to station buildings. Once the area was declared safe every spare hand was brought in to clear debris and the squadron managed to get 17 aircraft away. Before they were due to return a bomb disposal unit arrived from Digby to make safe the two 500lb bombs. One of the 17 aircraft which did manage to take off failed to return, P/O Clifford Edwards and his mixed Australian-British crew disappearing without trace on what was their first operation.
The Ruhr offensive drew to a close in mid-July as Bomber Command switched its attention to other targets and, in p
articular, to the ancient city of Hamburg.
Chapter 8
Fire and Brimstone
Hamburg and Peenemünde
Shortly after 10pm on the night of Sunday July 25 1943 the first of 27 Lancasters of 103 Squadron took off from Elsham Wolds. They were bound for Germany’s second city, Hamburg, a raid which was to prove yet another turning point in the bombing war.
On board those Lancasters, and on the other 764 RAF bombers that would aim for Hamburg that night, were thousands of packages of thin aluminium strips each measuring 30cm x 1.5cm, matching exactly the frequency of the radar sets which controlled German night fighters, anti-aircraft guns and searchlight batteries. ‘Window’ had arrived.
This top secret device had been developed by scientists a year earlier but its use had been withheld for fears that the Luftwaffe might copy it and use it on bombing raids on Britain. It was a decision which was to cost the RAF perhaps hundreds of aircraft and countless lives for the Hamburg raid that night was to prove that Window worked, and worked dramatically, even though the resourceful Germans would eventually find a way of dealing with it.
Window came in bundles of 2,200 strips and most aircraft carried at least 50, with crews being instructed to push out one bundle every 30 seconds as they approached the target area. Some of the aircraft flying that night had been modified with a special chute fitted near the bomb aimer’s position to enable him to push out the bundles as they approached the German coast (this idea had been first developed by 460 Squadron air and ground crews at Binbrook and had been demonstrated to AVM Harris when he visited the airfield that summer). But the vast majority of aircraft had to use their flare chutes, usually situated in mid-fuselage, with usually the bomb aimer designated as the ‘pusher-outer’ while other crew members lent a hand. As the bundles opened and fell they reflected back radar images to Luftwaffe controllers so that the skies seemed full of British bombers. One estimate had it that the Window dropped that night presented radar images equivalent to an approaching force of 11,000 aircraft. The key Wurzburg radar system was immediately rendered impotent, Lichtenstein sets fitted to night fighters were filled with impenetrable images, radar-controlled searchlights and radar-predicted flak became virtually impotent. Of the 791 aircraft which flew to Hamburg just 12 were lost.
That attack was to be the first of a series of four, later collectively known as ‘The Battle of Hamburg’, aimed at destroying Germany’s second city. It was an aim which came near to being realised, creating the first great ‘fire storm’ and killing 40,000 people. The fire storm created during the second raid was not a deliberate act by the British. The number of incendiaries used was no different to any other raid of a similar magnitude, nor was Hamburg particularly vulnerable. Most of its wooden buildings had been destroyed in a fire a century earlier. It was simply a matter of fate, the bombing coming at a time when various meteorological and atmospheric conditions combined for a disaster on a Biblical scale. Not for nothing were the Hamburg raids code named ‘Operation Gomorrah’.
The 27 Lancasters provided by 103 Squadron was the highest number from any bomber squadron on any of the raids and they were to suffer the highest casualties, three aircraft – a quarter of all those lost – failed to make it back to Elsham. Lancasters flown by W/O Gordon Hardman and W/O Felix O’Hanlon had the misfortune to be found by night fighters, both crashing in the North Sea while the third, flown by F/Sgt Bob Moore, disappeared without trace. Another Lancaster was lost from 460 Squadron, which provided 26 aircraft, the second highest squadron total, for the raid and was led by the station commander Hughie Edwards, while 166 Squadron lost W/O George Ashplant and his crew, whose aircraft was unlucky enough to be caught by a searchlight over Hamburg and then coned by many more before it was shot down (for the story of George Ashplant see The Highest Degree of Courage). Another Wellington from 305 Squadron at Ingham ran out of fuel and crash landed at Trusthorpe on the Lincolnshire coast.
12 Squadron’s ‘Blitz ‘Em Blondie’ at Wickenby in the summer of 1943. (Wickenby Archive)
Meticulous planning went into that first raid, as it did into all Bomber Command operations by this stage of the war. Aircraft from 1 and 5 Groups assembled over Mablethorpe before heading out across the North Sea to a point off Heligoland where they joined aircraft from 4 and 6 Groups from Yorkshire and 3 and 8 (Pathfinder) Groups from East Anglia before turning in six waves to cross the Elbe estuary and across Hamburg. Precisely 42 minutes after crossing the German coast the bombers were back out across the North Sea. The bombing was concentrated and had been planned so that the inevitable ‘creepback’ itself inflicted huge damage.
When the raid was over there were muted celebrations back at bomber bases, although not perhaps at Elsham where three dispersals stood empty. The squadron historian later noted the night was ‘a blow’ to 103 Squadron.
There was to be no respite for 103, the remainder of Bomber Command nor, for that matter, the Germans. The following night over 700 aircraft bombed Essen. Hamburg had originally been chosen as the target but the city was still covered in some smoke from the previous Bomber Command raid and a daylight attack by the American Eighth Air Force so it was to be Essen’s turn yet again. Window was again used to great effect although losses were higher, particularly among Halifax and Stirling squadrons, unable to fly at the altitude reached by the Lancasters. But 103 was to suffer again, losing two more aircraft, while a Wellington from 300 Squadron failed to return to Ingham and a 460 Squadron Lancaster, which had been hit by incendiaries over the target area, was wrecked on its return to Binbrook.
The following night came the raid for which the name ‘Hamburg’ will ever be associated with. It was a hot, dry night in the city, fires were still burning from the previous attacks, water supplies were low and many roads were blocked by rubble, hampering fire fighters. As the raid progressed the concentrated bombing led to a series of major fires which then joined together, sucking in oxygen and creating storm force winds which, in turn, increased the intensity of the conflagration. The firestorm was to last for some three hours during which time an estimated 40,000 people in the city died, many through carbon monoxide poisoning as the air was sucked from their shelters.
Bomber crews from Lincolnshire could see the flames over 100 miles from the target. One bomb aimer from Binbrook reported seeing a ‘sea of flames’ so bright that he could read his maps by their light. Aiming points had vanished and aircraft simply bombed the burning area, adding to the devastation below. F/Lt Wedderburn of 101 Squadron noted with some pleasure that Hamburg’s defences were ‘feeble in the extreme’ thanks to Window.
Other returning aircrew spoke of the area looking like ‘an active volcano’, of columns of smoke reaching to over 20,000ft. It was a sight those who flew over Hamburg would never forget and many were the RAF airmen who felt pity for those on the ground. The raid itself cost 1 Group three Lancasters, one each from 12, 100 and 101 Squadrons with just one man surviving.
This was what did the damage. A Binbrook Lancaster’s bomb load of high explosive and incendiaries, packed into canisters. (Peter Green Collection)
Bomber Harris had promised to destroy Hamburg and he was a man of his word. The following night the city was bombed yet again, with over 700 aircraft targeting the few areas so far relatively undamaged. Again 1 Group lost three aircraft, two Lancasters from Binbrook and a 166 Squadron Wellington flown by F/O Eric Birbeck, who was on his fourth operation. His bomb aimer was F/Lt Jim Brind, the squadron’s bombing leader. The pilot of one of the Binbrook Lancasters was P/O Herbert Fuhrmann who, along with his navigator P/O Charles Anderson, had won a DFM and a DFC respectively during a raid on Stettin earlier in the year. Their aircraft was lost over the North Sea and the entire crew is remembered on the Runnymede Memorial.
The fourth and final attack turned out to be a disaster for the attackers. And the enemy was an old one – the weather. Met officers had noted a large thunderstorm with clouds reaching up to 30,000 feet around Oldenburg, not f
ar from the track the bombers would be taking but far enough for Harris to gamble on the raid going ahead. He got it wrong. Some were recalled while many crews were forced to turn back or to bomb other targets, at least four aircraft crashed because of severe icing or turbulence. It was to prove a terrifying experience for those who flew through it and one man flying with 460 Squadron that night was later to tell the author: ‘It was as though God had decided we had done enough to Hamburg’.
Another man who flew that night was Sgt Cec Bryant, the rear gunner in a 166 Squadron Wellington. It was his crew’s fourth trip to the city and the memories of it were to remain with him for the rest of his life.
This is how he remembered it: ‘August 2 was a lovely day. It was Bank Holiday Monday but there was to be no rest for us. We had planned to take the bus from Kirmington into Cleethorpes and were just about to board in our best uniforms when the duty runner came to tell us that all flying personnel had to report to the flight office by 14.00 hours. Ops were on again.
1 Group Page 11
