The Red Line

by John Nichol

  Roland Luffman took his position at the wireless operator’s desk on the port side of the cabin, forward of the wing. Next to the inner engine, it was the warmest part of the plane, and so where the crews often kept their ‘pee can’. On one raid, Rusty Waughman, of 101 Squadron, remembers a bomber below them exploding, ‘which rolled us a half roll over’. As he fought to regain control of the plane, Taffy, his wireless operator, started to scream ‘Blood! Blood!’ over the intercom. He thought he had been hit. In fact the pee can had been turned over during their dive and emptied on his head.

  Sam Harris eased himself behind the navigator’s table, hidden behind a curtain on the starboard side, just behind Ken and flight engineer ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, and lit by an Anglepoise lamp. Chalky White, the bomb aimer, slid down the steps into the nose and lay flat on the ice-cold floor. Things would get a damn sight hotter for him when the flak crackled around him and the aircraft lurched and veered its way on the final run in to the target.

  Once at their posts, they went through the usual drills. After cries of ‘Prepare to abandon aircraft’, then ‘Abandon aircraft! Abandon aircraft!’ they threw open the escape hatches and slithered over the wings to practise a ditching at sea. Nothing could mimic the real challenges of trying to escape a bomber in a vertiginous spin, pinned to the sides or the roof by massive g-forces, unsure which way was up and which way was down. But it was something – certainly better than surrendering their fate entirely to chance – and it might buy them the precious seconds that could separate life from death.

  They paused for a smoke and a chat, ran through a final crash landing drill, and headed back to the mess for those newspapers. After lunch there were no rides into town because there was no definitive word on whether there would be an op that night. No word meant staying on camp, idling away time, catching a nap, playing cards, stealing some coke for the stove or writing a letter home.

  Then the base Tannoy sprang to life.

  ‘All crews to report to their squadrons.’

  The poor weather had seen three successive operations cancelled, which meant that Rusty Waughman and his crew had just enjoyed their third good night’s sleep in succession – all except their rear gunner, Harry ‘Tiger’ Nunn. The previous night’s op had been scratched just prior to take-off, and by then Harry had taken a ‘wakey-wakey’ pill, the methamphetamine cocktail intended to make sure he would be alert for the whole flight. As his mates got their heads down, he had spent the whole night pacing the floor of their hut, talking to himself, too manic to even lie on his bed.

  Rusty Waughman, the 20-year-old son of a Durham colliery worker, had worked hard to become a pilot. Like Cyril Barton, he had been a sickly child. He had suffered bouts of diphtheria and tuberculosis and had a heart murmur, and his mother, a Royal Red Cross-winning matron at a military hospital during the First World War, constantly had to nurse him back to health. He missed out on many things as a result, football and swimming amongst them, so he always felt an outsider – and when he was old enough to join up he seized his chance to be part of something rather than feel left out once again.

  Like the Bartons, his parents worried about him constantly, but when he told them about his plans to follow his father into the Navy they weren’t unduly concerned, confident that his childhood illnesses would render him unfit to serve. When Rusty filled in the medical form at the recruiting centre, he omitted to mention his tuberculosis but included everything else. Then, on the spur of the moment, he decided to try his luck with the RAF instead. Their medical examination was less stringent and he was accepted immediately.

  While Harry Nunn finally caught up on some rest later that morning, Rusty made his way across the base. Ludford Magna was a difficult place to warm to. It was built on farmland as a temporary installation by the construction company George Wimpey in 90 days, and its first Commanding Officer had described it as ‘a joke in very bad taste played by the Air Ministry at our expense’. Under a steel-grey sky and a bone-numbing wind, after several days of heavy rain, it was living up to its nickname: Mudford Stagna. Rarely had the 101 Squadron motto, Mens agitat molem (Mind over matter), seemed so appropriate.

  Rusty expected to be stood down yet again that evening, or assigned a training flight at most. His surprise when told at the squadron office that there would be an op gave way to unease when he walked past the aircraft at dispersal. Having primed them for the cancelled raid the night before, the ground crews were now winching down some of the bombs to make way for additional fuel. Whatever their new target might be, it was clearly a long distance away. And that was never a good sign.

  Rusty kept his concerns to himself. He didn’t even share them with the eighth member of his crew, Special Duties Operator Ted Manners. The Lancasters of 101 Squadron were fitted with a device known as the Airborne Cigar (ABC) that disrupted the enemy’s radio broadcasts between their night fighters and ground control stations. When it was introduced in the autumn of 1943 the first words heard through its airwaves during a raid over Hanover were ‘Achtung! English bastards coming!’

  Ted had become a popular and much-valued member of the crew, even though he was billeted elsewhere – in case he divulged any secrets in his sleep that his crew-mates might give up under enemy interrogation. There was nothing secret about the three large aerials that picked up the radio signals which Ted tried to jam – two protruded from the top of the fuselage and one from beneath the bomb aimer’s position – but they also never asked him about the things he heard during an op as he sat, headphones clasped to his ears, in his own closed-off area behind the navigator and wireless operator.

  Ted had spent three years learning German at grammar school, and so was selected for special duties when his training as a gunner was complete. His objective was to tune in to the radio exchanges between enemy controllers and their airborne fighters, which showed as vertical ‘spikes’ across a horizontal base on a cathode ray screen. As soon as he recognised a German voice he switched on his jammer, emitting a high-pitched shriek – which the enemy called Dudelsack (bagpipes) – to interfere with their communications traffic.

  With three transmitters at his disposal, Ted could target three frequencies simultaneously, constantly monitoring the enemy’s shifts of frequency to counter his interference. The downside was that his own jamming signals made the aircraft vulnerable to tracking; 101 suffered the heaviest losses of any squadron as a result, and since some of the Special Duties Operators in 101 Squadron were of German birth or heritage they could expect no mercy if they were captured.

  While Rusty waited for more news, the crew tried to kill time. Some wandered off to the local farmhouse in search of a fry-up; others went to dispersal to chat with their ground crew. Harry Nunn had slept off his amphetamine high and was now sitting on his bed in his long johns with his clarinet. His mates did not always enjoy listening to him practise. He had recently lost a reed, and eventually found it sliced in two. He had been smarting and determined to punish the culprit ever since.

  The call came just after lunchtime. Crews were to report. The waiting was over.

  Chick Chandler

  Flight Engineer Chick Chandler did not need wakey-wakey pills to keep him alert. His drug was fear. He was responsible for everything mechanical during a flight. From his position beside his pilot Oliver Brooks, he monitored the instruments, as well as a second panel that told him the health of the aircraft’s four engines and its fuel status. There was a bucket seat for him to perch on, but Chick didn’t think it gave him the best view, so he sat on his toolbox.

  When he joined XV Squadron at Mildenhall in October 1943, his technical knowledge was sorely inadequate. He was told his training would take two years to complete, but he was activated after six months, nowhere near ready for combat. Much of his time had been spent playing football, and Chick injured himself so frequently that he was more often in the sick bay than at lectures; he managed to miss a lesson on propellers that left him clueless about how they might work or be
repaired, but losses had become so great and replacement crews in such demand that Chick was deployed to Suffolk despite his lack of competence.

  His early experience with Bomber Command had done little to bolster Chick’s courage. On a Berlin raid he had watched in horror as countless bombers were shot from the sky, with no billowing parachutes to indicate that anyone on board had managed to escape.

  At Mildenhall he and his crew had been moved from a wooden hut into the relative luxury of bricks-and-mortar married quarters. By that time they had completed 13 ops; barely halfway through their tour, they were the most experienced members of their squadron. As they lugged their kit through the door, a map of mainland Europe was being ripped off the wall. Chick moved closer to see that it was covered with pins. The previous occupants had marked every one of their targets. Now they were missing and the Committee of Adjustment was removing their belongings, pins and all. Chick realised that the berth he had been looking forward to with such enthusiasm was probably a dead man’s bed.

  On every op, as a lucky charm, Chick carried a grey silk scarf with black markings which his mother had given him. As the order came through that cold March day, he made sure his scarf was close at hand.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Red Line

  Cyril Barton (back row, centre) with 78 Squadron

  By the middle of the afternoon, to the surprise of many in the upper echelons of Bomber Command, the Nuremberg raid was still on. The first meteorological report of the day was handed to Harris and his team at 1 p.m.

  ‘Bases fit for take-off with only a possibility of a few scattered showers. Over N. Sea broken convection cloud mainly below 12,000 ft, but there may be some isolated tops to 15,000 ft or above. Over continent convection cloud is expected to break up appreciably.’32

  There would be no need to call off this raid. The breaking cloud over the continent would offer the bombers a clear view of the target and enable the main force to mark and bomb effectively. A Mosquito was sent over mainland Europe to assess the weather the bombers might encounter on their outward route. The flight returned at 3.25 p.m., its navigator suggesting that the earlier reports were inaccurate. There was little prospect of cloud cover on the way out; the bombers would be exposed. And the sky above Nuremberg appeared to be overcast, the enemy of accurate bombing.

  Meteorological officer Magnus Spence issued another briefing: ‘Nuremberg: Large amount of strato-cumulus with tops to about 8,000 feet and risk of some thin patchy medium cloud at about 15-16,000 feet.’

  In a letter to the historian Martin Middlebrook, written on 14 September 1971, just 12 days before he died, Bomber Harris’s deputy Robert Saundby confirmed that both he and his chief saw that forecast. ‘I can say that, in view of the met report and other conditions, everyone, including myself, expected the C-in-C to cancel the raid. We were most surprised when he did not. I thought perhaps there was some top secret political reason for the raid – something too top secret for even me to know. But now I do not think that this was so.’

  Saundby gave three reasons why he thought Harris still chose to go. Churchill wanted to hit Nuremberg for symbolic reasons; he wanted one last heavy bomber raid before they switched to French targets in preparation for Operation Overlord; and because summer was on its way, the shorter nights meant that long-range ops were increasingly hazardous.

  ‘Harris was under pressure to make the attack,’ Saundby said. ‘He took a chance and he backed a hunch.’33

  Whatever the reasons, Harris would not be swayed. The preparations were complete. The target had been selected; the route had been finalised; the aircraft were being primed; the squadrons chosen to take part had been notified, and their commanders had selected the crews to carry out the raid.

  Owing to the cancellation of several previous raids – and thus no recent losses and no fatigue – there were more crews than usual available, but an operation deep into the heart of enemy territory that gruelling winter meant that experience was at a premium.

  The battle orders were posted, listing the crews that would be involved by the name of their pilot. The minutes before the main briefing were often long ones. The atmosphere on base became yet more highly charged. Life in the nearby towns appeared to grind to a standstill. Ground crews checked the aircraft at dispersal. Fuel bowsers and bomb trailers went into overdrive. Some airmen would try not to think what might lie ahead. Some spent their time writing to loved ones.

  Before his first op, while the rest of his crew smoked and paced around him, Cyril Barton had sat on his bed and opened his writing pad. ‘Dear Mother,’ he wrote, ‘I’m hoping you never receive this but I quite expect you will …’

  Nine months and 18 operations had passed since Cyril had written that ‘last letter’ and entrusted it to his younger brother Ken, only to be opened in the event of his death. There had been near misses. A piece of flak flew through the roof of the plane during their sixth raid, on Leverkusen, and fractured Len Lambert’s skull, but he still managed to navigate the return journey home. He missed two months of ops but rejoined them after a bone graft in January 1944, in time for the crew’s move from Snaith to Burn. ‘After I was wounded, I wondered if I was good enough to get us back every time. I seem to remember worrying not so much whether I would survive myself, but whether I was good enough to get the crew as a whole to survive, because it’s a nasty feeling getting lost in the air. A lot of people lost their lives because their navigators got lost.’34

  The crew did everything together. Cyril and Len were teetotal, more likely to be found in the NAAFI having a cup of tea than in the pub with a pint, but when they did go to their local, even if he was only having lemonade himself, Cyril always made sure he stood his round. The Websters’ farmhouse was another regular port of call. They used to be invited there for supper after church on Sundays, and the family always gathered at the end of the runway to wave off Barton’s Barmy Bomber Boys, as the family knew them, before each raid. ‘Mrs Webster would make these big apple pies,’ Len remembered. ‘She had the pastry cut out: BBBB.’

  Cy’s crew had a book in which they jotted down observations of each other and life in Bomber Command. ‘My introduction to a Fraulein,’ wrote Wally Crate, the crew’s Canadian bomb aimer, of how he might chat up a young German woman. ‘Excuse me, miss, when did I bomb you last?’35

  March had not been easy, however, and not just because of the intensity of their operations. They had also been plagued with mechanical failure. At the beginning of the month the brakes on their Halifax Mk III had become unserviceable. Cy’s new aircraft had developed a problem with its oxygen supply on its first raid over Stuttgart. Two nights later the bomb doors failed to open over Frankfurt. They eventually managed to open them and ditch their load over Darmstadt, but had to land at their base in North Yorkshire with the bomb doors still wide open.

  The next three raids, on Frankfurt, Berlin and Essen, had gone smoothly, and their faith in their new Halifax was renewed. Yet Cyril was troubled. The crew had as little idea of the strong feelings stirring beneath his normally jovial exterior as his family did on his last visit home. They knew he was a church-goer, but no one realised the importance of his faith, or how sorely it had been tested since becoming operational.

  His father’s prediction – when granting him permission to sign up – had not been too wide of the mark. Cyril revealed his inner conflict in a letter to a friend and fellow Christian in mid-March. He confided that the vigour of his prayer had suffered because he was worried about offending or upsetting Jack and Wally, with whom he shared a room on base, by ostentatious shows of faith. On 28 March, just two days before the Nuremberg raid, he wrote again; he had taken the opportunity to pray properly, in front of his crew-mates, rather than furtively, as if it was something he should be ashamed of. Jack had been listening to the radio, but turned it down out of respect to his skipper, though he forgot to turn it off when he got into bed, which perhaps showed how shaken he was by Cyril’s behaviour. It seemed to reso
lve Cyril’s turmoil, though. ‘The Lord was very real to me for a few minutes and I was very thankful to Him for bringing me through, whatever the consequences might be,’ he wrote. ‘I have now done 18 ops and am looking forward to finishing within a reasonably short time.’36

  That March afternoon in Burn, Cyril’s correspondence was rather less profound, but no less important. It was his youngest sister Pamela’s 10th birthday on 5 April and he had bought her a card with an illustration of ‘Hush-a-bye Baby’. The nursery rhyme was reprinted inside, prompting Cyril to add, ‘PS: Hope the nursery rhyme isn’t too babyish for you!’ He scribbled the address on the envelope and put it back in his locker. He would post it tomorrow.

  At RAF Leconfield with 466 Squadron, Andy Wiseman had written a ‘last letter’ to his girlfriend Jean. They had met before the war, when Andy was at school in Hampshire and her mother was a friend of his headmaster, whose son was suffering from polio. Jean and her mother used to visit, to try and cheer the boy up. On one occasion they stayed so late that they needed an escort home; Andy was given the job. ‘It was love at first sight. She was the first girl I’d ever come close to. I think I had a novelty value for her. I was a foreigner; I could speak languages; I’d travelled. I kissed her hand and I clicked my heels when her mother came in – I was different.’

  They stayed together throughout the early part of the war but had not married because Andy feared he might be killed. ‘I knew what the odds were. Jean said, “Oh, I’d love to marry you and have a child,” but I wouldn’t, because I didn’t think I’d survive. It was a conscious decision.’ In his ‘last letter’ Andy told Jean he loved her and apologised for dying, but he couldn’t resist a joke. ‘I wrote: “You’ll never find anybody quite as good as me, but you’ll find somebody almost as good, and good luck to you both.”’