Bombing Run

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Four

  Wheldon was already beginning to think that it was unwise to believe everything he was told at briefing or to follow instructions to the letter. The squadron had been ordered to provide twelve aircraft this time. This made him wonder whether it was Command, or perhaps even Air Ministry, policy to show defiance by increasing the size of formations sent across the North Sea in proportion to aircraft losses. If so, it could only delight the enemy: the more the R.A.F. sent out, the more the Luftwaffe—under whom the Flak units served, as well as the fighter squadrons—shot down.

  It was a day of lowering cloud and the lights were on in the conference room. The smell of that morning’s floor polish thickened the air. A dank autumn odour came through the open windows. The central heating was on. Greatcoats were being worn on parade now and the air crews went about in their Irvine jackets. A leather jacket lined with lambswool, with a big collar and zip fasteners, was a fine swashbuckling garment. Besides, when you wore one everybody knew you were aircrew, which was not discernible from a greatcoat. Many emphasised their status as death-defying aviators by sporting flying boots as well.

  Group Captain Kirkpatrick looked inscrutable. Group Captain Kirkpatrick’s profession and the task he had in hand at this moment demanded inscrutability. Several people looking at, and listening to, him now had the suspicion that there was a maelstrom of emotions going on under his unemotional exterior. No one could have won all those gongs without being exceptionally brave and an outstandingly good pilot. Surely he must be wishing he could show the squadron what he could do instead of merely sitting there and hearing them told what they must do. Other people did not believe that he had any feelings at all and that his expressionless face portrayed a totally objective view of what probably awaited them in Schillig Roads: that, at best, if he had any sympathetic thoughts at all, they were probably dominated by relief that he was no longer compelled to fly in the face of the enemy.

  He was not, for the time being, an auditor of others’ injunctions. As Wheldon put it to himself, Groupie was up on his hind legs. His theme had already become monotonous and the object of a ridicule that the crews found it difficult to suppress. Not all of them did try to disguise their cynicism about it and a muffled snigger momentarily made him frown.

  ‘Your target for today is, once again, enemy shipping: in Schillig Roads, which, as you all know, is the sea area off Wilhelmshaven. There is one very important constraint imposed on you and it is because it is so important that I am passing on the order to you personally.’ He repeated the prohibition on attacking any ship which was so close inshore that a bomb might fall on land, and the respect that must be shown for civilian lives and property.

  Wing Commander Norton, when his turn came, presented his usual debonair façade of apparently casual disregard for any real danger from the enemy. He looked cheerful, as though his fondest wishes were about to be indulged by a kindly higher authority. They probably were, Wheldon reflected: Wingco Norti didn’t shoot a line about his zest for battle; love of excitement, epitomised by a smack at Jerry, whom he mocked and abominated, was the essence of his character.

  ‘Here you are, chaps, this is the target area.’ He used the pointer as though digging Goering in the ribs. ‘We’re R.V.ing with nine Wellingtons each from Nine and Ten Squadrons and six from One-Four-Nine, over The Wash. R.V. height is seven hundred feet, which should be three to five hundred below cloud base.’ His ‘should’ was a jibe at the Meteorologists and gave a welcome excuse for releasing a little tension in a general mild laugh. ‘I’m coming along to make sure everyone gets there.’ Another light laugh from the listeners. ‘We’ll fly in Vics, sections astern. Nine and Ten will do the same to starboard and port, and One-Four-Nine will be in two vics astern to close the box.

  ‘We’ll fly all the way at five hundred feet and bomb from that height or lower.’ He paused. ‘Or lower, according to visibility and targets’ distance from shore. We’re going to hit our targets today, not bomb the fishes or bring any bombs back. Bomb load eight five-hundred-pound A.Ps. Fuse setting, eleven seconds delay: that’ll give us time to bomb from mast-head height and get clear of the blast.’ He waited for the ironical amusement to subside. ‘Hold formation as well as you can if we run into fighters. But don’t sacrifice accurate bombing to formation-holding.’ His expression hardened and he was no longer the genial buccaneer but the determined tough leader and he communicated the rider ‘or self-preservation’ to them all without having to speak it.

  The newly acquired Met officer, a shy civilian, stood up next and told them that there was cloud right across the North Sea, its base between eight and fourteen hundred feet; that winds were light to moderate, north-westerly; and, tapping a nicotine-stained finger on his chart, talked with enthusiasm of regional pressure settings, fronts, occlusions and catabatic and anabatic winds.

  There was no hurry. First take-off was at 1300 hours, 1 p.m., which gave them time for lunch and the prospect of dinner or high tea at a reasonable hour when they returned. The crews spent the interim looking frequently at the sky and trying to conceal their hope that the weather would deteriorate. There was no set number of operations to a tour, then, and therefore no compensatory realisation that every sortie, bad though it might be, was another one nearer to the thirty needed before being sent on rest.

  O for Orange’s starboard wing had been repaired, but Wheldon felt uneasy about his aeroplane. The more he told himself that it flew exactly as before, the less he really believed that it did. He was sure that he could sense a definite tendency for the starboard wing to drop. He said nothing about this and waited for some comment from Vachell. When none was forthcoming, he derided his own uneasiness; then reminded himself that Vachell, self-conscious of his captain’s scorn, might well keep quiet even though he, too, felt that O-Orange was no longer the well-balanced aircraft it used to be.

  He had air tested Orange that morning and this impression that it flew one-wing-low, hands off, remained. It was going to be a tiring flight anyway, without this added eccentricity. He watched the bombs being loaded and Corporal Foot personally polishing his rear turret, while Knee polished the front one, and Legge checked the waist guns. He now and then kept thinking of Audrey Hobson, and generally feeling unsettled. He would rather that take-off had been set for two hours earlier. Waiting was as bad as being within range of Jerry fighters.

  Everything changed when he started his engines. Then, he would not have wished the operation to be cancelled even if it brought him a thousand-pound bonus. Skimming over the boundary fence, he would not have changed places with anyone who had been left off that day’s Battle Order. He was doing what he had elected to do, not only as a means of becoming a sergeant and earning a lot more than he was as a leading aircraftman fitter-armourer, but because it was what he wanted most ardently to do in all the world. He was in the element for which he felt he had been born. There was nothing the matter with Orange; and if there were, it was nothing that he couldn’t handle better than any pilot on the squadron; save the Wingco and perhaps a couple of others.

  Wheldon surprised his crew by his sudden use of a catchphrase then gaining currency: ‘Are you happy in your work?’ There was a short astonished silence before the voices came through the intercom. ‘Rear gunner, Skip: I’m ‘appy in me work.’ ‘Wireless Op, Skipper. I’m happy in…’

  Vachell looked at Wheldon and grinned. The suppressed anxiety of a few hours earlier had been dispelled. All my own work, thought Wheldon; and I’m happy in it, too. There was a much older Service saying that went ‘If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t have joined.’ Wheldon was gladder than ever, at that moment, that he had joined. And when he saw the 24 other Wimpeys simultaneously approaching The Wash he was as confident and relaxed as even Wing Commander Norton could have wished. What was there to worry about? Cloud cover would protect them from Jerry fighters, and Flak would be baffled by the low cloud as well.

  It was decent of Audrey to come out onto the control tower
balcony and wave to him as he taxied to the down-wind end of the airfield. She must have come out specially to do that, for she had not waved to anyone else. He took it as a good omen, although the logic of this escaped him when he tried to rationalise it. He had hardly spoken to her since she had refused him the last waltz, a week ago. He remembered then that there was another dance in the N.A.A.F.I. that night. It was to be a weekly affair now that the W.A.A.F. had come to stay. He might look in after he had eaten; and had a few drinks.

  Flying No 2 to the Wing Commander, immediately on his starboard and slightly astern, became an increasing reminder, as the miles reeled past, of what was expected of him when they went into action. By the time they were half way to the target area, Wheldon had reconciled himself to the fact that his chances of surviving this raid were much worse than on the previous one. But, although he had adjusted to the reality, he had no intention of succumbing to it. The intrepid Norton could fly as wildly as he wanted to, but he himself was not bound, by any concept of honour, to follow him slavishly in his rashness.

  Norton shared Group Captain Kirkpatrick’s fetish of close formation that meant aircraft almost touching. The long flight across the North Sea was an excellent opportunity for practising this. Wheldon had to keep watching his port wingtip. The wing was between Norton’s starboard wing and tailplane. It’s tip was only a few feet from the starboard beam gun position. He could see the air gunner on that side peering morosely at him.

  Holding station in the bumpy air was wearying. Wheldon was no great athlete or muscle-builder, and he began to tire. He could not use the autopilot and he was reluctant to hand over to Vachell, who still had not gained his full confidence. To do so, anyway, they would have to switch in ‘George’ while they swiftly changed places; and in that moment might come a collision.

  There was no reason other than to practise for keeping this tight formation. To defend themselves against fighters they would have to loosen out to give the gunners decent fields of fire. They would have to loosen the formation before they bombed. But close formation flying was good discipline and one of the hallmarks of an efficient squadron. If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t have joined.

  They saw ships in Schillig Roads about a minute before the ships saw them. They knew predictors of some kind would detect them while they were still too far away to pick individual targets and make their bombing runs. They knew next to nothing about the British early warning system, except that the tall masts they saw on the south and east coasts were part of it. They knew nothing at all about the enemy’s early warning network. They had never heard the word ‘radar’. Some of them had heard of ‘radiolocation’, but did not know how it worked.

  It was a surprise when the ships opened fire while they were at such a distance. There was a flurry of shell bursts ahead and on both flanks. A latticework of streaks made by tracer mingled with the large-calibre explosions. Wing Commander Norton rocked his wings and the close-packed Wellingtons slid apart.

  The three other squadrons taking part had been an incentive to Norton to show what his could do. Close formation had been as much to demonstrate this as to keep his own pilots up to scratch. Now he had a further opportunity. He dived towards the anchorage.

  The web of multicoloured tracer from the 37 mm guns looked as though it formed a curtain that would be impossible to penetrate without being shot down. Wheldon was, for the first time, gripped by a personal hatred for the men behind the guns. By extension, he was suddenly hating the whole German nation. It was they who had wanted this war, they who were bent on dominating Europe and, eventually, the world. Each one of them was as guilty and as responsible as Hitler for the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of this war. Instead of resisting Nazism, most of them had embraced it with enthusiasm; the rest had accepted it without protest. He was feeling what Group Captain Kirkpatrick and Wing Commander Norton had learned to feel a quarter of a century earlier.

  He followed Norton closely, seeking a ship to attack, keeping an eye on Norton, leaving the spotting of enemy fighters to his crew. Fighters? Surely not, in this weather.

  At 100 ft, Norton flattened out and tore towards the biggest ship in sight, a cruiser. Her guns were lacerating the sky with their quick-firing 37 mm. It was impossible to tell if Norton was being hit.

  ‘Rear gunner, Skipper. One of ours on fire and ditching… one of Nine’s just blew up.’

  ‘O.K.’ An insipid comment on tragedy, but Wheldon spoke at all only to confirm that his intercom was working. ‘We’ll follow the Wingco… go for the cruiser. Bomb doors open, Second Pilot.’

  ‘Right, Skipper.’ Vachell reached down for the lever.

  The lever was adjacent to the flap lever.

  The aircraft soared up steeply, losing speed as it did so. A medley of shouts and profanity coursed through the intercom. Wheldon, who a few seconds before had been staring at a cruiser from whose anti-aircraft guns shells were hurtling towards him, found himself flung back in his seat and looking at the underside of the clouds that covered the whole sky. He saw that Vachell had fallen off his seat. Ufland was cursing the sudden spilling of his charts, his pencils and navigation instruments, while he rolled about in the nose of the aircraft, where he had gone as soon as Wheldon nominated the target. The waist gunner was scrambling up from the floor where he had been tumbled.

  In a moment O-Orange was in cloud and still climbing.

  ‘For Crissake get the bloody flaps down, Tony.’ Wheldon’s voice was tight with fury.

  Vachell groped for the correct lever and Wheldon kept the stick forward to break clear of cloud. They raced out of it and a Wellington was dead ahead and crossing their bows. Wheldon kicked on hard left rudder and put on steep bank, turning his head to port to make sure that there was not another Wimpey on that side as well.

  Shells thudded into Orange’s wings. The aircraft with which it had nearly collided burst into flames. Dense smoke hid half of the other Wellington. It pitched into the sea.

  The cruiser was emitting smoke and flames from its quarterdeck, where Norton must have hit it. But all its 37 mm guns were still in action.

  A Wellington burned on the sea, while three of its crew struggled to inflate a dinghy. Every other ship in the anchorage was firing at the attackers. Bombs were bursting in the sea. With their long-delay fuses, they went to the bottom before they detonated. The pillars of water they spewed up were thick with sand and weeds and lumps of rock. Dead fish mingled incongruously with the grey-green water and white foam as it towered above the choppy surface.

  ‘Bombing,’ Wheldon said. He levelled his wings at about 100 ft, as near as he could tell from his altimeter and by his own judgment. He flew towards the target from astern so as to give Ufland the best chance of a hit. There was no need for Ufland to give him directions at this low height. The cruiser looked huge and she seemed to have sprouted more guns. The 37 mm fire came thick and fast. It tore great holes in the Wellington’s wings. Wheldon feared for his engines. After enduring so much, it would be a cruel blow if he were shot down before he could bomb.

  He heard Ufland say ‘Bombing…’ and then there was a tremendous concussion for’ard that forced the Wellington to jerk its nose upward. The scream of wind through the shattered fuselage rose above the other sounds.

  Wheldon held the aircraft steady and watched the cruiser slip past beneath. But there was no lightening of the aircraft’s burden or abrupt sensation of its rising unbidden as the bombs left its bay.

  ‘Captain to Observer. What’s wrong?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Tony, go and see.’

  Fragments of shellcase and 37 mmm shells were slamming into the Wellington. Wheldon raced up to shelter in the overcast.

  Vachell returned to lean over him, his lips trembling and his face pale. ‘Beaky’s badly wounded… can’t see… intercom gone… Knee’s had it… half his head shot away…’

  ‘Get up there and bomb, then.’

  ‘But…’

 
; ‘Get up for’ard, damn you.’

  Vachell disappeared.

  Wheldon dived back towards the battle. He found the cruiser once more and made for it. He held straight and level while the aircraft shuddered under the impact of more hits. It climbed without his touch on the stick when the bombs fell. He went down to within a few feet of the water, where guns could not be depressed to fire at him, and made a flat turn. But before he could see the spouts of water from his bombs, Corporal Foot said ‘All misses, Skipper… near misses.’

  Wheldon looked for other Wellingtons with which he could form up. Few remained. One of them bore the Wing Commander’s identification letter and he turned to join it.

  ‘Fighters, Skipper, astern, up.’

  ‘Fighters coming in from port…’

  ‘Coming in from starboard…’

  They were Me 110s, the twin-engined jobs that could follow them far out to sea.

  The rear and waist guns chattered. They stopped suddenly when Wheldon was within 200 ft of the cloud in which he was seeking shelter in preference to staying with the others for mutual protection.

  Vachell was at his side again. ‘Go and look, Tony.’

  As Vachell turned away, sparks flew from the port engine and a Me 110 roared past a few feet overhead. The engine gushed smoke and screamed to a stop, seized solid. The port wing sagged. Wheldon scrabbled for the last few feet that would give him sanctuary. Damp vapour swept into the cockpit.