F/O Peggy Burnside and S/Ldr Bruce Derner in the briefing room at North Killingholme prior to the attack on Nordhausen, April 3, 1945. (Roland Hardy)
Only at Faldingworth was there any real sign of dissent about Dresden. Earlier that day the decision to cede large parts of Polish territory to Russia, agreed at Yalta, had been announced on the BBC’s Home Service. It came as a hammer-blow to the Polish airmen who had been fighting with the RAF for almost five years and the news was not helped at the Faldingworth briefing where crews were told the raid was intended to support the Russian advance in eastern Germany. The crews wanted to know why they should risk their lives when Poland had clearly been betrayed at Yalta.
In the event, a seven-man Polish crew from Faldingworth were among the first casualties of the Dresden raid. Shortly after take off at 9.45pm that night, W/O Mykietyn’s Lancaster collided with another aircraft from 550 Squadron near Wragby, both bombers exploded in mid-air, killing the Polish crew and that of F/Lt Eric Allen from North Killingholme. Just half a dozen Lancasters were lost on the raid itself, including two from 1 Group, flown by F/O Roland Young of 576 Squadron and P/O Doug Rimmington of 103.
Before take off all crews were issued with small silk squares with a Union Jack on one side and the words ‘I Am English’ in Russian on the reverse in case they were forced down near Russian lines. They were to carry the same silk squares the following night when the second part of Thunderclap was enacted, an attack on Chemnitz, another two-part raid, this time involving the Halifaxes IIIs of 4 Group. 1 Group’s Lancasters were once again in the second attack but this time found the target covered in cloud and could only bomb on sky markers. Parts of the city were damaged but most of the bombs fell in open country. Thirteen aircraft were lost, four of them from 1 Group. There were no survivors from the Lancasters of F/Lt Bob Cunliffe (625 Squadron), F/O Dennis Kemp (166) or F/Lt Clement Mills (153) but all seven men in the 100 Squadron crew of P/O Tom Townley bailed out on what was their first and only operation from Waltham.
F/Lt Jimmy Marsh, 12 Squadron’s gunnery leader, who was killed in an attack on Zeitz, January 16, 1945 as part of F/Lt Stuart Whyte’s crew. He had already completed one tour of operations with 460 Squadron. (Author’s collection)
Many crews flew to both Dresden and Chemnitz, a total flying time of some 19 hours, some keeping going on the benzedrine ‘wakey-wakey’ tablets freely handed out after briefings. Geoff Robinson was the flight engineer in ‘Dicky’ Bird’s 626 Squadron crew at Wickenby and remembered that after leaving Chemnitz for the flight home his skipper switched on the automatic pilot. The next thing he remembered was waking to find the rest of the crew fast asleep. He woke the skipper and they discovered they were down to 2,000 feet over Spalding in south Lincolnshire!
1 Group was stood down for the next five days but was to suffer heavily when its aircraft took part in the last attack of the war on the Ruhr city of Dortmund, losing 11 Lancasters with another crash-landing on its return. Worst affected was again 166 Squadron which lost three Lancasters. One was being flown by A Flight’s commander, S/Ldr Ken Collinson whose crew had already completed their tour but volunteered for ‘one more’. Killed along with him that night were the squadron’s gunnery leader F/Lt John Barritt and the bomb-aimer, F/O John Sinclair DFC, a former Metropolitan police officer who had become a father that very day. Another of the squadron’s flight commanders, S/Ldr Ron Waters, managed to get his crippled Lancaster back to Manston on two engines after being hit by flak over the target and then by a fighter on the return leg. 166 also lost the aircraft and crew of F/Lt David Hall, six of whom were Canadians. Another flight commander lost was S/Ldr Tom Warner from 101 Squadron, although he survived along with four of his crew.
625 Squadron’s B Flight commander, F/Lt Lennox and his crew pictured at Kelstern with their Lancaster, spring 1945. They include F/Sgt Ron Wilsden, wireless operator, an unknown friend of the crew, F/Lt Lennox, F/O M. Brook, navigator, F/Sgt D. Abbott, flight engineer and Sgt W. Birkby, rear gunner. (Author’s collection)
The following night Duisburg was attacked and another eight 1 Group Lancasters failed to return, three of them from 576 Squadron at Fiskerston. The crew of F/Lt Charles Living were killed but 11 of those on board the other two managed to bail out over Allied lines. 550 lost its CO, W/Cmdr Bryan Bell but he survived to be taken prisoner along with five members of F/Lt Derek Luger’s crew. Bell had previously served as a flight commander with both 100 and 550 Squadrons at Waltham before moving to 1656 HCU at Lindholme as Wing Commander Training under A/Cmdr George Banting. After a spell of leave he returned only to find out that he was going back to 550 as commanding officer. Thus it was that he had put himself on the battle order for the Duisburg raid.
He had just handed over controls to F/Lt Luger when a fighter came up unseen from astern. ‘His first burst hit the rear gunner and started a fire,’ he later wrote. ‘We heard his screams and then the intercom burnt out.’
The mid-upper gunner got in a ‘good burst’ at the fighter as they carried on with their bomb run but it soon became clear that the Lancaster wasn’t going to make it. The fire had spread and all the hydraulic fluid had been lost and the order to abandon the aircraft was given. As the crew started to bail out the blazing tail section of the Lancaster parted from the main section of fuselage, blowing the fortunate wireless operator clear.
625 Squadron’s veteran V-Victor pictured with air and ground crew soon after the squadron moved from Kelstern to Scampton in the last month of the war. (Clem Koder)
W/Cmdr Bell landed safely and, after getting his bearing from the stars, set off in what he hoped was the direction of the Allied lines only to meet up with a platoon of German soldiers and spent the remaining weeks of the war in a Bavarian prison camp. Two members of the crew were killed in the fighter attack, the rear gunner, 19-year-old Sgt Fred Jones, and the bomb aimer, Sgt Gordon Hancock.
Only three men died in two 170 Squadron Lancasters lost on the Duisburg raid, the pilot, F/Lt Tom Smith and his flight engineer in one, and the rear gunner, F/Sgt Franklyn Paterson, in the second. His aircraft was hit by flak and partially abandoned and he had the misfortune to fall through an open escape hatch before he could attach his parachute when the aircraft was attacked seconds later by a night fighter.
Two nights later 1 Group was to be involved in what proved to be the third most destructive raid of the war after Dresden and Hamburg when they bombed the picturesque Black Forest town of Pforzheim, the centre of Germany’s pre-war watch-making industry. It was because of this and the likelihood that precision instruments were being made there that it was selected as a target. Much of the town was timber-built and at least 17,000 people are thought to have died when the 367 Lancasters involved, the majority from 1 Group, bombed from as low as 8,000 feet. It was later estimated that 83 per cent of the town had been destroyed in the raid, which lasted just 22 minutes. It was another terrifying display of the power of Bomber Command. Thirteen Lancasters failed to make it back, all but one of them from 1 Group. In one of them wireless operator F/Sgt Jack Bettany was to win a CGM. He was flying as a replacement in F/Sgt ‘Basher’ Paige’s 625 Squadron crew on his 16th operation with his third different squadron in a much-interrupted Bomber Command career when their aircraft was hit by a shower of incendiaries. The aircraft was badly damaged and F/Sgt Bettany managed to throw at least 15 out of holes in the fuselage. He also ensured both gunners managed to get out before baling out himself, using the aircraft’s spare parachute after his own inadvertently opened inside the fuselage. When the crew arrived back at Kelstern and told their story the squadron CO, W/Cmdr John Barker, immediately recommended F/Sgt Bettany for his bravery award. Jack Bettany himself thanked his lucky stars that he had checked the position of the reserve parachute before they left Kelstern.
Although losses had tailed off dramatically, accidents still took their toll and six young men relatively new to 12 Squadron at Wickenby died when their Lancaster dived into the ground at Stainton-le-V
ale on the Lincolnshire Wolds during a training exercise. The pilot, P/O Keith Lindley, was just 20 and his elder brother Arthur had been killed flying over Holland in a 107 Squadron Boston in August 1942. P/O Lindley was later buried in Newport Cemetery in nearby Lincoln. A few nights later two more crews from 12 Squadron were to be killed on training flights but this time their deaths were no accidents.
Grog’s-the-Shot, 100 Squadron’s Z2, pictured after the move from Waltham to Elsham, March 1945. This aircraft led Bomber Command’s Main Force on the final operation of the war to Berchtesgaden. Pictured are (left to right) P/O McQuaid DFC, P/O Sanderson DFC, F/Sgt Johnson, S/Ldr Scott DFC, F/Lt Harwood DFC, F/Sgt Nelson and P/O Jones, together with members of the ground crew. (Author’s collection)
This was the night in early March 1945 when the Luftwaffe staged Operation Gisela, when over 100 He219 and Ju88 night fighters shot down 20 bombers as they returned to their bases from raids on Kamen and Landbergen. On a number of nights during the previous month night fighters had followed the bomber streams back to England to check their approach and landing procedures. On the night of March 3-4 the intruders struck just as the tired bomber crews began to relax with the beacons and landing lights in view. Airfields in Yorkshire were hit particularly badly with half the losses occurring there. 1 Group escaped relatively lightly, although a Lancaster from Binbrook was caught by a Ju88 not far from the airfield at Wickenby. Five of the crew managed to bail out but both the flight engineer, Sgt Alan Streatfield, and the wireless operator, F/Sgt Bob Davey, the only Australian in the crew, were killed. The two 12 Squadron aircraft were both on night exercises. P/O Arthur Thomas’ Lancaster was caught near Gainsborough and crashed between Blyton and East Stockwith close to the River Trent. The second, flown by F/O Nicholas Ansdell, was attacked further south in Lincolnshire and came down at Ulceby Cross, near Alford, a roadside memorial stone now marking the location of the crash site. There were no survivors from either crew. At least one Lancaster was attacked in the circuit at Ludford but escaped, cannon shells hitting the home of the local vicar, the Rev Ravins, narrowly missing his two young children, one of whom later became a school friend of the author.
There was another tragic loss that same night when a 153 Squadron aircraft vanished without trace on a mining operation over the Baltic. The aircraft was flown by P/O Leo Gregoire, a Canadian who had recently been awarded a DFC. His fellow Canadian bomb aimer, W/O Ken McCoy, was the only survivor of a 626 Squadron Lancaster shot down over Belgium in May 1944 and had evaded capture, returning to operational duties with 153 at Scampton. 153 was to lose two more aircraft and their crews in exactly the same circumstances a month later.
Bomber Command returned to Chemnitz on the night of March 5-6 on a night which saw nine Halifaxes of 6 Group crash on or soon after take-off because of heavy icing, one of them coming down in the city of York. There were no such problems for the Lancasters of 1 Group but eight of them failed to return.Two were from 625 Squadron at Kelstern but of the 14 men on board only two would be killed. One, flown by Canadian F/O Jim Alexander, had suffered engine problems on the outward leg and could barely climb above 15,000ft before it was attacked by a Ju88 soon after they had dropped their bombs. The aircraft lost its hydraulics and then caught fire and the skipper ordered his crew to bail out. The rear gunner, Sgt Joe Williams, struggled to get out of his turret only to find his parachute was on fire. He recalled a conversation in the Waterloo Inn at Laceby the night before when the pilot had talked about stowing the aircraft’s spare parachute behind his seat and he quickly made his way to the front of the aircraft where F/O Alexander was about to make his exit from the burning Lancaster. The pilot quickly climbed back into his seat, allowing the young tail gunner to strap on the spare ’chute and jump before finally going himself. It was an experience very similar to that of Jack Bettany at Kelstern. Another 1 Group casualty that night was the 460 Squadron Lancaster of F/Lt John Holman DFC, who was on his 40th operation. He was killed along with the other seven men on board, including another second tour officer, F/Lt Tom Morgan DFM.
The 1 Group Summary of Operations for this raid makes interesting reading. It states that 239 Lancasters were detailed for the raid, nine aborting for various reasons. Apart from the eight missing aircraft, another from 101 Squadron, had diverted to Juvincourt, east of Paris after being damaged. ‘Ground opposition was very slight in the target area,’ the summary went on, ‘but the Leipzig defences were active. Only three aircraft were damaged, two over the target and one over Leipzig. Fighters were in evidence in the target area and along the first two legs of the route home. Ten aircraft were engaged in combat, one on the outward leg while crossing the battle lines, one near Leipzig and the others in the target area. One Ju88 is claimed destroyed and one Me110 damaged.’ The summary concluded that while the target was covered in cloud, the bombing was concentrated and a ‘big red explosion was reported’.
Tom Tobin and crew, 153 Squadron, Scampton 1945. (Tom Tobin)
Those defences referred to were still a major threat to bomber crews despite the near-collapse of the German military. Forty-eight hours after the Chemnitz raid 1 Group was to lose another 13 Lancasters and the lives of 67 men on the 1,850 mile round trip to Dessau. Three of those were from North Killingholme and included 550’s veteran ‘The Vulture Strikes’ which was being flown by F/O Cyril Jones. Four of his crew survived along with six others from the crews of F/O Bob Harris and P/O Searn Nielson. 103 Squadron also lost three aircraft, two crashing near the target area while the third, flown by Canadian F/O Bill Nightingale, survived attacks by two Ju88s and, although badly damaged, made it back to the Allied lines where the crew bailed out, the pilot being killed when his parachute failed. 101 Squadron was still flying ABC duties and lost one of its aircraft, flown by S/Ldr Monty Gibbon DFC, a flight commander at Ludford, This was one of only 11 aircraft lost by the squadron on operations in 1945. 170 Squadron at Hemswell lost the aircraft of F/O John Walker and F/O Harry Fuller while 576 also suffered two losses, the aircraft of F/O George Paley and F/O Charles Dalziel, the only 1 Group pilot shot down that night to survive.
550 Squadron’s last commanding officer, W/Cmdr J. C. McWatters (pictured seated centre). On his right is S/Ldr Peter Sarll. This pictured dates from the late spring of 1945. (Peter Sarll)
Allied ground forces were now poised to cross the Rhine and the final raids on the much-bombed Ruhr cities of Essen and Dortmund (the latter involving a new record of 1,108 RAF bombers) took place on March 11 and 12. 1 Group’s final loss over Essen was the Lancaster of F/O Eric Gibbins of 153 Squadron which went down in the target area. P/O George Burgess and five of his 460 crew were lost on the Dortmund raid while a second aircraft from 103 Squadron crashed near Elsham village on its return with a bomb embedded in the tail. The only fatality was the 19-year-old flight engineer, Sgt Francis Carter. 153 lost another Lancaster and an experienced crew when F/O Ken Ayres’ aircraft crashed off the Danish coast while on another mining operation. His aircraft may have fallen victim to a pair of night fighters which also accounted for S/Ldr Slater’s 103 Squadron Lancaster. He managed to evade capture along with four of his crew but his two gunners died in a battle with a Ju88. Another aircraft failed to make it back to 153’s home at Scampton a few nights later in an attack on the Duerag refinery at Missburg, the pilot, P/O Edward Parker being the only survivor. The same raid also claimed F/O Russell Wallace’s Lancaster from 550 Squadron.
The Nuremburg raid at the end of March 1944 claimed 22 1 Group Lancasters among the 96 bombers lost in this disastrous attack. Almost a year on, on the night of March 16-17, 1 Group staged its own attack on the city, sending 231 Lancasters accompanied by 16 Mosquitoes from 8 Group to provide the target marking. No fewer than 24 of the Lancasters failed to return from a raid which cost the lives of 123 men and left another 43 to spend the remaining few weeks of the war in captivity.
Casualties were especially severe at Wickenby where five Lancasters from 12 Squadron and another from 626 fail
ed to return. One of the 12 Squadron aircraft landed with battle damage in France but the remainder were shot down, almost all by night fighters which attacked the bomber stream on its way to Nuremburg and on the homeward leg in an awful repeat of the events a year earlier. 103 and 166 each lost three aircraft and two each were lost by 170, 576, 625 and 100 Squadrons with other single losses from 153, 460 and 550.
One of the aircraft lost that night was the 166 Squadron Lancaster flown by F/O Kevin Muncer, whose pregnant wife was living in Kirmington village, close to the airfield. He and his crew were on their 22nd operation and were attacked by a night fighter and went out of control. F/O Muncer was thrown through the overhead escape hatch and, although his parachute opened, he landed with such force in some trees that his left arm was literally ripped off. He was quickly found by a German farmer and a French PoW and taken to the farmer’s home where he and his wife gave the injured pilot treatment before help arrived. After the war Kevin Muncer was surprised to receive his watch back. Another French PoW working on the farm had found his severed arm and, on removing the watch, saw the pilot’s name engraved on the back. He later contacted the International Red Cross who arranged to have the watch, a birthday present from his sister, sent back to him. Two years later Kevin Muncer was able to repay the kindness of the farmer and his wife by helping arrange the repatriation of their son, who was a PoW in Scotland, to help the elderly couple out on their farm.
1 Group Page 32
