by John Nichol
Eyes tight shut, he reached for the controls that lowered his seat, and he only opened them again once he was beneath the relative shelter of the cockpit coving. He blinked in the glare, but could see enough to throw the Lancaster into a dive. The nose went down and they started to plummet. The engine screamed as their fall gathered momentum. Freezing air from the open window rushed past his ears, making him gasp. Pinned to his seat, Ron did his best to wrench back the controls and bring the plane level, but it was falling too fast and he didn’t have the strength.
In a final, desperate act, Ron decided to try the trim control. ‘We came back up very nose high and at a low speed. I don’t actually know whether we did a loop or a tail slide, or if the nose just flopped forward. All the gyro-operated instruments had toppled, and it was only because there was bright moonlight and because there were a number of searchlights on us that I could see a horizon. I could use that and get some sort of perspective and see which way up we were. I was able to bring the aircraft level. If the searchlights hadn’t given me the light to see, then I’m certain we would have gone into a spin and crashed.’
They had managed to haul themselves out of the radar-guided searchlight cone. While the flak still erupted furiously around them, Ron was able to set them on course for the bombing run. He did not yet have the luxury of being able to dwell on the fact that he might have been the first pilot ever to have looped a Lancaster.
The sky over Nuremberg was ablaze with searchlights and flak, and some bombs were hitting the target – but it was a world away from the spectacle of earlier raids. ‘There was usually a certain grandeur about the scene with the markers, the flak, the searchlights and the night fighters, even though there was always death and destruction,’ as one flight engineer described it. ‘But on the Nuremberg do it was eerie. It was as though we had no right to be there. I suppose we hadn’t really.’
For the German night fighters, the riches of the previous hour had now become slim pickings. Fritz Lau’s ground crew had forgotten to refuel his Me 110. When it was finally ready, he wondered if it was even worth taking off, but decided there was a chance he might intercept the bombers on their return trip. He had been a spectator as the night’s action unfolded, watching the night sky turn red when bomber after bomber was struck by his comrades. Eventually he downed a rookie Australian crew with a burst of Schräge Musik, and only one man was able to parachute to safety.
Once the night’s target had filtered through to the ground radio operators, Lau headed to Nuremberg. Most of his fellow pilots had been forced to land through lack of fuel. As he neared the city he could see the ground fires, but the stream had scattered completely.
‘Luck was not with us. It was clear that the bombers, after unloading their bombs, were breaking out of their formation – each pilot taking his own course for England. In those circumstances, they could vary their headings and altitudes at will and this way better avoid us night fighters.’66 Lau had no option but to return to Langediebach with only one kill to his name.
At 1.30 a.m., as Patricia Bourne fell back into a deep slumber at Ludford Magna, Jimmy Batten-Smith’s Lancaster dropped its bomb load and headed away from the target area. Almost immediately a German night fighter raked its fuselage with a burst of cannon and machine-gun fire and sent it spinning out of control. It crashed beside the autobahn, six miles east of Nuremberg, killing everyone on board. Jimmy had entrusted the ‘last letter’ to his parents, to be opened in the event of his death, to Patricia before every mission as a matter of ritual. Now she would have the tragic task of sending it to them.
Adrian Marks’s 101 Squadron Lancaster had developed a technical problem which prevented it from gaining altitude at the requisite speed. The crew decided to risk going it alone to and from the target rather than flying below – but at the same pace as – the rest of the stream and ‘have the bombs of our own aircraft falling around us and possibly on us’.67
In the light of unfolding events, this may well have saved their lives. When they arrived over Nuremberg 25 minutes later than scheduled, ‘the city appeared to be on fire in several areas’ – but the absence of night fighters and flak allowed them to complete their mission untroubled. After what had appeared to them to have been a trouble-free and routine raid, they were the last crew to bomb the target.
Friedrich Ziegler’s father emerged from their basement an hour after the last bomb had exploded and the sound of the aircraft engines had faded. An incendiary bomb had landed in the yard, but luckily it had only burnt two-thirds of the way down and had not fully detonated. When he was absolutely sure that the raid was over, he fetched the rest of the family.
Friedrich stumbled outside. The smoke in the air stung the back of his throat as he watched his father, the farmhands and the French PoWs tackle the blaze. Friends and neighbours ran to and fro, trying to help, to the sound of the bells of the approaching fire engines. ‘People didn’t know what had hit them – quite literally, as some had been splattered by the chemicals in the incendiary devices and showed their yellow wounds. Nobody had a clue what it was.’ Fifteen people in Kleingeschaidt had been killed in the raid.
Fritz Fink wandered around in a daze when the all-clear was given. He climbed on to the roof of his house and collected the splinters of flak that had fallen like rain as the city’s defences had tried to blow the bombers out of the sky. They would be souvenirs of a memorable night.
The bomber crews that had endured and survived the unrelenting danger of the long leg and had turned to brave the flak and searchlights over the target now faced a tortuous journey back to British shores.
CHAPTER 13
Homeward Bound
Cy Barton and what remained of his crew had managed to drop their bombs, though almost certainly on Schweinfurt, and turned their Halifax home. Now the gusting headwinds promised a protracted return journey – with no navigator to guide them, no wireless operator to call for help or obtain a radio fix, no intercom and only three working engines. Cy had no option but to use the North Star as his guide, in combination with his pilot’s compass and a small captain’s map that he taped to his knee to stop it sliding to the floor.
He increased their height to 13,000 feet and set a course he hoped would take them where they needed to go. In the distance he could see searchlights roaming the sky, but – as he had on the way out – he succeeded in weaving a path between their beams.
His flight engineer was at his side. Maurice Trousdale remained unruffled by the searchlights but troubled by the instruments which told him how their stricken aircraft was coping.
‘What shall we do next?’ Cy asked. ‘Do you think we can make it, or should we head for Switzerland?’ They might manage an emergency landing in neutral territory and get home to continue their war.
Maurice said nothing. They had two ruptured fuel tanks and had lost 400 gallons of petrol. There was no way of telling exactly how much fuel remained in the tanks, but he made some hasty calculations. ‘We can make it back to England,’ he replied. ‘But we’ll be running on fumes.’
‘I think we should go for it,’ Cy said. ‘But it’s only right that we ask Freddie and Timber what they think.’
Their guns were no longer functioning but both men had stayed at their posts, on watch for night fighters. Maurice found Timber, outlined the situation and explained they were three crew short.
‘Have we got enough fuel to get back?’
‘I think so. We either go back or make a course for Switzerland.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Cy and I want to carry on for England.’
‘Then so do I,’ Timber replied.
Freddie Brice stared into the infinite darkness from his immobile rear turret. The call light had stopped flashing, and there was no noise save for the drone of the Halifax’s three working engines. ‘I now had time to wonder how far we were from home, and how they all were up front. Not being able to speak to anyone was leading me to think all sorts of things about
what could have happened. It all seemed so quiet now as we made tracks for home. No one was bothering us; no flak, no searchlights. We were now so low that I remember flying over a wide river and the moon was shining on the mud flats and I could see little huts built on the banks.’
Freddie began to wonder if everyone else had baled out. He was tempted to leave his turret to look, but he resisted the urge. Unless otherwise ordered by his pilot, he needed to stay at his post and keep a lookout for enemy fighters. If they needed to make an exit, he had absolute faith that Cy would find a way to let him know.
There was a knock on his turret doors. He twisted around to open them, and was mightily relieved to see Maurice. ‘I asked how they all were up front and he told me that Jack, Len and Wally were gone. By this I thought he meant they had been killed, so asked no more. He also told me that on the way back Cy had asked him if he would like to try to head home or head for Switzerland, and to go back and ask Harry the mid-upper what he would like to do. They had both decided to try for home, and here we were.’
The moon had now set and the sky was dark – and apparently free of danger. Freddie left his post and clambered gratefully over the main spar. When he reached the cockpit, he tapped Cy on the shoulder, and he was greeted by the familiar boyish smile and a thumbs-up.
‘We’ll soon be near the English coast,’ Cy said. ‘With a bit of luck.’
Freddie felt immediately reassured. Cy had that effect on everybody. If Cy thought it was going to be OK, then who was Freddie to doubt him?
Maurice said he was going into the nose to look around, and Freddie went with him. The open escape hatch told its own story. There were no patches of blood to suggest that any of his three crew-mates had been wounded before they baled out.
The wind gusting through the hatch had scattered maps and notepaper across the front section of the aircraft. There was nothing they could do in the nose to alleviate their plight. Nor anywhere else, for that matter – at least as far as Freddie was concerned. They were at the mercy of fate and reliant as ever on the skill of their pilot. On that basis Freddie still fancied their chances. Timber went aft to the navigator’s position; Len’s desk was peppered with holes, and his maps had been shredded by cannon fire.
Cy had always insisted that his crew should have a working knowledge of each other’s roles. Timber had enjoyed some success when playing with the GEE navigation system on the ground, and had a basic understanding of its subtleties, but Len’s set, like the radio, had been shattered by incoming fire. He did all he could to try and get it up and running, but without success. The charts were useless too; they had been damaged beyond all recognition. Timber reported the bad news to Cy.
By now the North Star had disappeared and it was too dark to navigate by sight. Cy started to send Mayday calls in case they were able to transmit but not receive, but there was no hint of a response. Cy took the decision to continue flying; if the engines started to fail, he would ask Maurice if he could change over the tanks, and hope for the best.
But there was no escaping the grim reality of their situation: they were lost, alone and badly damaged.
As they flew south of Stuttgart, Sam Harris watched as the other bombers flew directly over the heavily defended city, and offered thanks that he wasn’t in one of them. He had tried to avoid the strong headwind by descending to 19,000 feet. It was less gusty at that height. He reckoned it would be around 80 minutes’ flying time from the French border to the Channel; plenty long enough for the night fighters to hunt them down.
Mac, the flight engineer, sat up front, watching the instrument panel. Ken had taken a ‘wakey-wakey’ tablet an hour before the target, as usual, to make sure he was as alert as possible for the ‘business end’ of the flight. The snag was that when it wore off during the return he had a tendency to fall asleep with the plane on auto-pilot. Mac was there to keep an eye on things and wake him up if they got into difficulties.
At his desk, Sam had his work cut out. Before take-off they had hatched a plan to make their own way back, steering clear of the most heavily defended areas, and away from the bomber stream. They were banking on the German night fighters being more likely to follow the crowd. The problem was that his Squadron Navigation Officer was an irascible martinet – not the sort to look kindly on an underling stepping outside well-defined orders and acting on his own initiative. Whenever they returned from an op, he went through their logs with a brutal, uncompromising eye, writing caustic comments in red pencil whenever he spotted sloppy calculations or errors. Sam needed to ‘fiddle’ his log so it appeared to show they took the route they were given at briefing, while simultaneously making sure their aircraft followed the alternative course he and his crew had agreed.
It was now 3.30 a.m. Sam had been awake for the best part of 22 hours; this was a real test of his skill and concentration. He had hoped the GEE box might give him a fix, but he wasn’t able to make sense of the signals. ‘It was like looking in knee-high grass for three-inch blades.’ Finally, he found what he was searching for, and was able to fix their position with the necessary accuracy. They were on the right track; there was no need to change course.
Luftwaffe pilot Martin Becker had landed near Mainz to refuel and take on fresh ammunition. While he was there, he learned that there were Allied bombers returning to England on a route between Stuttgart and Mannheim. Once in the air, a ground control operator directed him to the nearest available target. ‘You should see him now!’ the officer yelled, and gave him the order to attack. ‘Pauke machen! Pauke machen!’
Becker was less excitable than his earthbound guide. He picked up the bomber – a Halifax from 429 Squadron – and eased calmly into position beneath it.
The first hint of Becker’s presence to anyone on board came when their plane was ignited by cannon fire. The bomb aimer saw the twin-engine fighter passing their wing tip. ‘It was so near that I almost could have reached out and shaken hands with its pilot.’68
The pilot managed to keep the flaming Halifax level long enough for the whole crew to bale out. It crashed in Luxembourg to give Becker his seventh kill of the night. Of the 50 men he had shot down, 34 were dead.
Squadron Leader Keith Cresswell was one of the most experienced bomber pilots on the raid. His Lancaster was north-west of Paris and almost home when his rear gunner saw a fighter at their heel. He gave him an order to corkscrew to port. Cresswell was about to act when something, pilot’s intuition perhaps, told him to do the opposite. He threw the aircraft to starboard, avoiding a fusillade of tracer shells which tore through the sky at precisely the point where they would have been if he had taken the rear gunner’s advice.
The fighter disappeared, but not without inflicting damage. They had been peppered with rounds and hit once in the fuel tank; it was something of a miracle that they had not caught fire. They were losing fuel at such a startling rate that Cresswell knew they had no chance of reaching their base near Huntingdon. Dense fog would further hinder their chance of a safe landing.
Cresswell issued an SOS call, which went unanswered. He set his sights on a coastal airfield, settling on the Fleet Air Arm station at Ford near Arundel, Sussex. His fuel supplies were so parlous that circling was not an option. Cresswell had to try for a straight-in, emergency landing. The plane hit the runway at speed but he brought it expertly under control.
Climbing out of the damaged plane, Cresswell could see a burst tyre and a hole in the wing big enough for him to climb through. It was a miracle they had stayed airborne. Cresswell later found a shell lodged in the armour-plating of his seat; the firing pin had been damaged as it passed through the fuselage and it failed to explode. ‘It just goes to show how thin one’s life-thread is. I suddenly thought that the bastards always reckoned on one turning to port, so I whipped the aircraft over to starboard.’69
Dick Starkey regained consciousness. Woozy and disorientated, he felt as if his body had been pulverised by a sledgehammer. He opened his eyes. There was nothing, only
darkness. ‘Where am I?’ he thought. The first thing that hit him was the cold. Then, from somewhere above him, the sound of aircraft. He remembered: tracer fire from an unseen night fighter had ripped into his Lancaster while it was carrying its full bomb load and approximately 1,500 gallons of high-octane fuel. It had exploded with such force that the plane was blown to pieces and Dick was blasted through the Perspex canopy in front of him.
He realised he was in mid-air. His first reaction was panic. ‘I’m not wearing a ’chute!’ He felt in front of his face for the parachute supports, but he couldn’t find them. ‘I’m done for,’ he thought. ‘I’m going to hit the ground and be killed.’
Dick continued to grope desperately around with his hand, hoping to discover there was a ’chute attached to some part of his body. He felt a hook attachment above his head and hung on to it. Looking up, he saw the canopy, peppered with small, scorched holes. He glanced downwards. Despite the moonlight he could not gauge how close he was to the ground.
He could see the orange glow of countless blazing bombers in the distance; perhaps one of them was his own Lancaster. Every second that passed, he felt as if he was falling far too swiftly, despite the parachute being open, and that the impact with the ground would kill him. His flying boots had been blown off, his nose was bleeding and his face was cut and bruised from being forced through the cockpit window.
As the ground rose from the gloom, Dick started to brace himself. He hit the dirt with ‘an almighty wallop’ and rolled backwards down a small hill, knocking the wind out of him. Lying on his back, his breath gradually returning, he could see the silhouettes of hills in the distance. He heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘I’m alive,’ he said to himself.
While still lying down, he could feel that his neck and back had been injured on impact. He tried to stand up, but his right leg collapsed. He felt a searing pain, so strong it almost made him pass out. Looking down, he could see from the awful way his leg kinked above the ankle that it was definitely broken. The shock and the pain caused him to lose consciousness once more.
