by John Nichol
‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ Alec said. ‘I can’t log them all.’
Everywhere they looked, smoke and fire streamed from shattered fuselages. Some bombers rolled and dived towards the ground. Others just fell from the sky like stones.
As quickly as Ted Manners could jam one frequency broadcasting a running commentary to German fighters, another appeared on his scope. He was doing his best to ‘stop a rout from becoming a slaughter’; to give the battered bombers some respite from the relentless attacks. But it was a futile task. The transmissions between the ground and night fighter crews were too powerful, spread across too many frequencies; his disruption was having little effect.
Despite the carnage, Rusty flew on, almost detached from what was happening around him. The aircraft that had gone down were mere machines; he banished the thought that there were men aboard; men like him, dying in their droves. He needed to stay at the helm, concentrate on his job, and hope they made it through a hole in the sky, or that if a fighter locked on to them they would be able to shake it off.
The commentary from his crew had died down now, even though bombers were still being plucked from the sky all around them. As Rusty flew on, almost oblivious, through the trail of destruction, it was finally replaced by a stunned silence.
Alec’s voice echoed in the void. ‘Two minutes to turning point.’
Almost 60 bombers had been lost during the 220-mile leg from Belgium to the turning point north of Nuremberg – one every minute. There had never been such a concentrated period of devastation in RAF history. There has never been one since.
Ahead of them lay the perils of the bombing run.
CHAPTER 11
The Turning Point
Tony Hiscock
The bombers at the front of the stream reached the end of the long leg at 12.45 a.m. Nuremberg was 75 miles to their south.
Lancaster and Pathfinder pilot Tony Hiscock,60 with 156 Squadron at Upwood, had been tasked with dropping four red and yellow flares, one 4,000-pound cookie, five 1,000-pounders and one 500-pound bomb. The Pathfinders were due to arrive at the target first, to release their illuminating flares and highlight the area into which the other ‘Openers’ would drop their target indicators. Tony’s role that night was to be a ‘Blind Backer-Up’ and renew those markers for the main force. They were so far in front of the rest of the stream that his rear gunner had seen only dark skies and tufts of clouds, and no signs of the massacre that others had reported.
Zero Hour remained unchanged; the Pathfinders were still on course. Those behind, however, had been scattered; any notion of a compact stream had been abandoned. Its constituent parts were now strewn across a 50-mile area. While the night fighters were mainly responsible, some crews felt that those back in England were too. It was they who had failed to take heed of the updated winds calculated by ‘windfinder’ aircraft at the front of the stream. When John Chadderton’s navigator learned that the information they were sending back was being ignored, he made his displeasure known. ‘Nav to pilot. Group has done it again, Johnny. They’re still using the forecast winds; it’ll put everybody north of the track.’
As the bombers turned for the target above the snow-blanched Thüringen forest and its ancient mountains, they were met by a canopy of cloud – precisely the opposite of what had been briefed. Cloud cover on the outward journey would have made their trip considerably less perilous, but shrouding Nuremberg it would make accurate bombing almost impossible.
The cloud presented the Pathfinders with an immediate challenge. Their red and yellow target indicators might not be visible through the two miles of thick cloud that cloaked the city. Not all of the Pathfinders had been loaded with skymarkers – flares attached to parachutes, so they hung in the sky when ground visibility was poor – and of those aircraft which had, a number had been blown off course. To compound the problems, some of the parachute flares drifted quickly away from the target.
The ‘Openers’ had done their best in testing conditions, but their marking, like the whole bomber stream, had been scattered. Behind them, Tony Hiscock and the Backers-Up not only re-marked the target area, but also the flares which had been incorrectly positioned or had drifted eastwards. The confusion grew exponentially for those following.
The Tame Boar tactic – the German night fighters gathering around a beacon for the stream to fly directly into their path ‘like the gentlemen guns in a partridge shoot waiting for the coveys to sweep over them’61 – had wrought havoc on the stream. Now four Wild Boar groups were poised on the ground, waiting to hear which target they would be ordered to defend. Should they be sent north or south of the bomber stream’s track?
The Luftwaffe’s decision gave the RAF their first and only break of that night – the Wild Boar groups were sent north towards Berlin instead of south to Nuremberg – but it offered little breathing space to the battle-weary Lancasters and Halifaxes of the main stream. The Tame Boar fighters still had enough fuel in their tanks to follow as they turned for the final run to their target – or were able to land, refuel and take off again in search of their quarry.
John Chadderton ‘had managed to slip through the deadly gap before the wolves had gathered’. At the turning point for the bombing run their concerns switched focus from the winds to the thick cloud. They managed to find Nuremberg, or somewhere near it, on a course of their own choosing and drop their bombs, but how accurate they had been was anyone’s guess. ‘I felt the exhilarating twang under my feet as Easy surged upwards, like a tired hunter taking the last fence after a muddy chase. I held the course for 30 seconds for the obligatory photo flash and camera run, both useless tonight, but which one day would earn the crew an aiming point photograph and a 48-hour pass.
‘In the middle of a normal raid this always seemed the longest half-minute of my life, with searchlights and flak all around and a hideous inferno below, but here at Nuremberg it was quite unreal: a bit of flak about, the odd skymarker still drifting on a reciprocal underneath us, and the occasional bump of a slipstream passing at 90 degrees to us … Tongue in cheek, I asked Jack if he was sure we had bombed Nuremberg, and got the expected forceful reply …’
Cyril Barton was completing the sharp turn to port that would set them on course for the target. As they banked, he calmly reminded his crew to keep a sharp lookout. A voice shouted over the intercom, but was drowned out by a series of loud bangs that made the whole aircraft shudder. As it dropped into a shallow dive, Freddie Brice thought he saw the shadow of a night fighter swoop over the rear turret.
Cy threw the plane into a corkscrew, while Timber swung his guns back and started to fire blindly as they weaved through the sky. Only one of his guns was working; the other three had frozen.
Freddie saw a Junkers 88 loom on their starboard quarter and called for more evasive action. But the intercom was dead, damaged by enemy fire, so they couldn’t hear each other. He reached for the emergency call light.
In training, Cy and his crew had devised their own version of Morse code for this kind of situation. In the darkness of his cockpit, Cy saw the light flicker – the sign for a dive to starboard – and immediately threw the aircraft into a dive. Freddie’s guns were out of action, so he concentrated on being a lookout, sending signals as quickly as he could, hoping Timber might still be able to squeeze off a round or two.
As the fighter disappeared, Timber pressed dot-dash-dot – or R – the signal to resume course. A few seconds later it reappeared on their port side; he punched out the instruction to corkscrew, starting with a dive to port. Cy responded as a Messerschmitt 210 joined the fight. Timber watched mutely as its tracer sprayed over their heads. As its shadow flitted to starboard he held his breath, scanning the night. Cy continued to run through his defensive dives and turns. When the fighters had gone, this time Freddie issued the order for his pilot to resume course. The two gunners and their pilot were working in perfect harmony. Cy brought the flailing Halifax level; in the course of the skirmish it
had fallen to 9,000 feet.
Once again the Junkers popped into view on their starboard wing. Freddie reached for the call light. As he tapped out the code he could feel and hear rounds thudding into the side of the aircraft.
In Len Lambert’s navigator’s compartment ‘there was a terrific clatter as cannon shells hit the nose of the aircraft’ and he saw ‘a brilliant display of blue flashes and then flames from the electrical circuits’. His table was riddled with cannon fire. As part of their usual drill, when the bomber had started its approach to the target, it was Len’s job to fold up his chair, clip on his parachute and stand poised to open the hatch in case they needed to bale out.
As Cy threw the plane into a corkscrew to shake off the fighters, Len reached for his ’chute and inadvertently pulled the ripcord. He desperately tried to gather in the billowing folds of white silk as the parachute opened. ‘However, I managed to clip the main pack on to my harness, holding the rest of the material in my arms. The main escape hatch was directly under the navigator’s chart table and it had jammed. It may have been damaged in the attack.’
Because his hands were full, he had to try and prise the hatch open with his foot. What happened next is unclear. ‘I don’t know whether someone pushed me or whether it was the aircraft, but the next thing I knew I was in mid-air. I didn’t jump as such … But none of this would have happened if we’d had the intercom … The rule was to count to 10 after leaving the aircraft before pulling the ripcord, to avoid the parachute fouling the tailplane. Clearly I had broken the rule. This is it, I thought, but, thankfully, the main ’chute deployed safely.’
For Len, the roar of the battle had ceased. The only sound was a piece of torn parachute flapping in the wind and the distant drone of aircraft somewhere above him. He gazed at the sinking moon, and the last of the vapour trails. The contrast between the cramped frenzy inside the bomber and the vast silent sky was stark and unnerving. But at least he was safely out. He wondered what had happened to the others on board, but his concern was brief. He needed to concentrate on landing safely; then he would need to cope with being on enemy soil.
In his remote rear turret Freddie Brice wondered what the hell had happened. He had seen the fighters come at them in waves; while sending a succession of messages to Cy he had counted at least four attacks. He knew the plane had been hit. The lights had stopped flashing. Sealed off from the rest of them, he could only guess the damage.
The aircraft started to vibrate and he could see sparks flying past his turret window. They were flying normally but he could see they were low. The silence troubled him. For a few anxious seconds he considered whether he should bale out. ‘Not knowing what was happening up front I began to wonder if it was time I jumped, but at the same time I thought Cy would do everything possible to let us all know on the call light if he thought there was no hope of coming through, and if he didn’t have time then it would be all over quickly.’
The night fighters had not finished with them yet. ‘The mid-upper gunner saw him coming in on the port beam. He gave a series of dots on the call light and we took evasive action to port. Once again the fighter did not get in a burst, and as we weaved around the sky the sparks flying past my rear turret were even thicker. The aircraft was still vibrating badly, but we were still airborne.
‘Another attack came from below and once again the fighter scored hits. How long were we going to hold out? We had resumed course once more, the sparks had stopped flying past my turret and the aircraft seemed to have stopped vibrating. Then I saw a fighter coming in above and almost dead astern. I sent a series of dashes on the call light for evasive action to starboard and over we went.
‘The fighter came down behind, down to our starboard quarter. Once again it didn’t get a chance to open fire, and as he was breaking away the mid-upper got in a good burst. From the look of his tracer it seemed to head straight for the centre of the fighter’s fuselage, but I did not see them actually hit. This was the only burst he fired from our aircraft, and the fighter never came back.’
They were through the worst, but needed to know how severe the damage was to the Halifax from the incessant skirmishing. Cy and his flight engineer Maurice Trousdale made a quick assessment. The starboard inner engine was badly damaged; its vibrations were causing the whole aircraft to tremble. As they flew on, its propeller loosened and flew out into the night ‘like an enormous Catherine wheel’. The engine began to spark, but died before it could burst into flames.
Cy and Maurice quickly realised the engine was not their only loss: Len, Jack Kay the wireless operator and their bomb aimer Wally Crate had baled out in the chaos. Their situation was stark: they were an engine light; the plane was beaten up and ailing; they had no intercom, no one to guide them, no one to operate the radio or to release the bombs over the target. They had endured a relentless onslaught of night fighter attacks, and only came through it owing to the skill of their pilot and the reflexes, dedication and co-ordination of his remaining crew. The target area promised more of the same. Should they turn and head home or press on regardless and bomb the target?
Cy was not in doubt. He flew on to Nuremberg.
In their Halifax, Chris Panton and his maverick crew were preparing for their bombing run when cannon rounds streamed past the turret of rear gunner John McLaughlan, setting the starboard inner engine ablaze. A pilot flying second dickie reported the fire, but McLaughlan didn’t need telling: the flames were already licking his turret.
Christian Nielsen did all he could; he dived and corkscrewed in the hope that the rushing air might quell the fire. But as he did so the plane lurched into an uncontrollable fall. Nielsen gave the order to abandon aircraft. ‘The next thing I knew we were in a spin and heading down fast,’ McLaughlan remembered. ‘I reached for my parachute in between either being pinned down or thrown from side to side of my turret. I couldn’t get the bloody pack clipped on to my harness. I was all thumbs and still being thrown about and burned. Rather than stay there and be roasted, I decided to bale out. I’d practised this many times before but never in a spin. I pulled the ripcord handle and was immediately plucked out of the aircraft. I had not pulled out the connections for my oxygen mask or the heater cords for my gloves and shoes and so smashed my head against the airframe. Down I went, though, covered in blood.’62
As he fell clear, an explosion blew Nielsen and Cooper, the wireless operator, out of the side of the fuselage at 15,000 feet. The rest of the crew, including Chris Panton and the second dickie, were still on board the Halifax as it plummeted towards the hills near Bamberg, approximately 20 miles north of their target.
On the ground, the air-raid sirens had sounded and Bamberg’s residents scrambled from their beds. They gathered in their shelters, huddled together, wrapped in blankets. Those on fire-watch were the only ones out in the open. Among them was a young man who saw Nielsen’s flaming Halifax streaking across the sky like a comet, then disappear from sight near the village where he and his family lived. He abandoned his post and ran all the way home to check whether his loved ones had been harmed. Another eyewitness said: ‘I looked into the sky and saw nothing. Then I heard the engine noise of an aircraft. Suddenly there was an explosion and a fireball spiralled down to earth. Then there was a further explosion as the aircraft hit the ground.’63
At the family cottage in Old Bolingbroke, young Fred Panton slept on soundly, but in the small mining village of Ryhope, near Sunderland, the sirens were blaring. Twelve-year-old Alan Mitcheson was bundled out of his bed. Air-raids were nothing unusual; the area was home to shipyards and coal mines, prime targets for the Luftwaffe. Vast barrage balloons bobbed and drifted over their rooftops, and the Royal Artillery had installed anti-aircraft guns barely a football pitch away from his back door, and the sound when they fired was both thrilling and deafening.
Alan and his friends used to play war games around the nearby mine, in an area known as The Hope, a steep hill overlooking a ravine. Alan’s bedroom window also gave
him a view of the North Sea coast, and the chance to watch enemy aircraft approaching. But there was no way his parents would let him do it that night. He wrapped up warm and allowed himself to be shepherded across the damp garden to the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden by his mum, dad and sister to wait this one out.64
At 12.53 a.m. Sam Harris and his crew reached the end of the long straight leg 120 seconds behind their flight plan. Sam ordered his skipper to alter their course to 177 degrees. The target should have been 19 minutes ahead of them.
‘The target is off the starboard bow!’ Mac yelled.
Bewildered, Sam started checking his charts. How could his calculations have been so inaccurate? He decided to get up and have a look. Perhaps Mac had been wrong. He looked out of the cockpit: approximately 20 miles to their right he could see bomb explosions on the ground. It didn’t make sense. Someone had made a terrible mistake, and he knew it wasn’t him. At least he hoped it wasn’t.
‘That’s not the target! It’s not the right place,’ he told Ken. ‘The Pathfinders don’t start marking for another nine minutes. Someone has got it wrong. Keep on course.’
‘OK, Sam,’ Ken replied. ‘No panic. We’re keeping on 177 …’
Even though he was confident he’d made the right call, Sam slipped back behind his curtain and pulled the lamp closer to his charts and reckonings. They still appeared to be correct. Why other crews were bombing so far from the target remained a mystery.
The first markers were illuminating the sky in front of them. This had to be Nuremberg. His calculations had been spot on. The bombing run was straight ahead and his job was done for now. Sam went out to see what was happening.
Lying flat out in the nose of the aircraft, Chalky started to pass on the information required to bring them dead on target; it was absolutely crucial that each aircraft dropped its bombs in the same line, and stayed on course to avoid colliding with one another. Chalky checked all the switches on the release panel and gauged the wind velocity before peering through the amber cross of the bombsight at the target indicators, now hanging in the sky below them. All was set.
