by John Nichol
But when he was asked to be Captain, Dick was forced to make a decision he had been putting off for several months. Ever since his arrival back in England he had been suffering from dreadful recurring nightmares, in which he was falling to earth without a parachute. These had become so disturbing that he began to dread going to sleep. He knew he would never be able to recover as long as he remained at the helm of the plane, so he asked to be discharged.
The scars of the Nuremberg raid ran deep.
Stella Wilton was deputy head of the American Red Cross in Naples. At the conclusion of hostilities she had plans to return to the USA to start a new life. But first she wanted to find her son, Andy Wiseman, who had been shot down a few weeks after the Nuremberg debacle. She had not seen him for seven long years. Their last meeting had taken place in such a different world it might as well have been on another planet.
Since then, she had divorced his father, who had later been gassed to death at Treblinka with much of his family. Stella had only survived because she had changed her name from Wejcman, and been sent to an internment camp for US citizens. She had been liberated by the Russians at the end of the war, and made her way across central Europe by train to Naples.
She had exchanged letters with Andy’s girlfriend, Jean, and learned that he was being held as a PoW, but during the past few weeks there had been no news of his release. Each day was torture. She vowed not to return to America until she discovered what had happened to him.
One morning, in the summer of 1945, she got into the lift at the hotel where she lived. The doors opened on the ground floor; she slid back the metal grilles and walked out into the lobby. Then she stopped in her tracks.
He was in RAF uniform, looking gaunter than before, and much older. But he was definitely her son.
She ran across the lobby and wrapped her arms around him. Tears flowed from them both. Neither spoke. Just mother and son enjoying a reunion each feared might never take place. Eventually Stella unclasped herself and fixed him with a stern look. ‘What are you doing here?’
Jean had given him her address, he said, and he’d asked for a posting to Naples so he could see her. ‘There’s one more thing …’ He paused. ‘Jean and I are married.’
There were more hugs and tears. Andy told her that they had been on honeymoon in London, and were walking along Kingsway when they passed Adastral House, the Air Ministry headquarters. On the spur of the moment, Andy went in and asked the WAAF at reception if he could be sent to Naples to see his mother. A medical officer came down to see him, and it dawned on Andy that they thought he might be mentally unstable. Once they assured themselves that he was sane, and a former PoW, they noted his request. Within 48 hours his honeymoon was over and he was on a Dakota.
Stella dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Then the stern look returned. ‘If I’d been in England, I would have made you go to Oxford and stopped you joining the RAF!’
The years that followed were uneven and unpredictable for many veterans of Bomber Command. Some adapted to peacetime and civilian life with ease. Some desperately missed the comradeship and camaraderie they had shared with their crews. The contrast between their adrenalin-charged life on the edge and the humdrum world of day-to-day office and family life proved too great for others.
Jack Watson was one of the men who struggled to cope. ‘A friend of mine, who was a flight engineer, said to me, “I was an absolute swine after the war. It must have been very difficult for my wife to put with me.” Our mid-upper gunner married in 1946 and I was his best man. When we met up years later he said the same thing: “How she put with me, I do not know.” It was just so difficult to settle back into a life that was so different. In those days, you went out one night and you were conscious of the fact that it might be the last night you were doing it. You lived life to the full. I think this is the real reason why it was so difficult for us to settle, because you have been living the life of a playboy and suddenly you have become a pauper.’
The boys who joined Bomber Command came back as men, and many yearned for the freedom they had experienced on base. ‘It was really difficult to go back and live with a normal family,’ Jack says. ‘When I left the Air Force, family life in those days was obviously much stricter than it is now, and you went back and you were a man in your own right. You had grown up very, very quickly in Bomber Command, and seen things that most teenagers never hoped to see or wanted to see.
‘I found it difficult. I went to work, and I was fine then, but in the evening you thought, I’ll go down the pub. But then you realise you can’t because you haven’t got the money to do it. We weren’t alcoholics, but we did like to go out and drink two or three pints a night, or more, as a crew. That sort of partying and drinking was a way of relieving the tension – there was no point in saving anything, because there was no use in having 50 quid saved up in your locker when you’re on the other side of the Channel in a prisoner-of-war camp. Or dead in the ground somewhere. I got married in 1946 and it lasted for seven years but it was a very volatile situation. Eventually it failed, partly because of my experiences in the Air Force.’
Ron Butcher refers to the Nuremberg Raid as a major disaster. ‘I call it The Night I Was Almost Robbed of my Twenty-third Birthday.’
He returned to Canada at the end of the war, but the sight of a full moon still caused him great distress. And that wasn’t the only trigger. ‘I think I was very affected by the raid. I still have images of those parachutes floating down … For years afterwards, if I went to a firework display, I’d find myself back in that aircraft watching those men float down. Only a couple of months ago I heard my wife say to a friend, “Thank God he can at last watch fireworks with no problems.” That’s nearly 70 years on!’
Ron’s flashbacks were a classic sign of post-traumatic stress disorder. After Nuremberg he continued to fly operations, though most of his remaining missions were in preparation for the Normandy invasion rather than deep penetrative raids on German cities. Life in Bomber Command would still be extremely dangerous, and many more crews would be lost, but the scale of losses would never again compare with those during the long winter of 1943–44.
The nightmare of the Battle of Berlin was over, but the memories remained. ‘I still remember those days with clarity, especially that Nuremberg raid. It is imprinted on the film of my life. Of all of my experiences, all of my operations, Nuremberg occupies the biggest part of my memory. Yes, mistakes were made, but it was just one of those things that happen in war.’
There was one happy ending for Ron. Gord Schacter, his roommate and friend who had gone missing over Nuremberg, did survive. When he returned to the UK and was given his belongings, he found a note that Ron had slipped into his bags when he packed them for the Committee of Adjustment.
‘In case you get back!’ it read.
In 1949, when Fred Panton was 17, he expressed the wish to go to Germany to see where his brother was buried. His father would not hear of it. ‘You’ve got no need to go there,’ he told him sternly.
Even though Fred was no longer a boy, he knew better than to cross his father. ‘Even when I was courting I was back in bed by ten o’clock, just like he said.’
A few months later Fred had learned of a Halifax bomber for sale, similar to the one Chris had flown. It had completed a full tour of operations and Fred reckoned he could pick it up cheaply, for about £100, because so many of them were being taken out of service. They had a smallholding where he could keep it. Once again his father put his foot down. ‘No, you’re not having one of those things here,’ he said.
A couple of months later Fred was helping his dad pump some water for the ducklings to drink. As he worked, Fred told him again that he could pick up a bomber cheaply, and how much it was like the one that Chris used to fly.
The old man stopped pumping and fixed his son with a flinty glare. ‘Fred, I’m going to tell you this once and for all. If you’ve asked me once, you’ve asked me a hundred times. You’re not hav
ing one of those mucky things here.’
Fred gave up at that point. He knew his father would not be swayed and he dared not risk his wrath. He put to one side his project to commemorate Chris’s wartime role.
Sam Harris was at home in Mablethorpe when the idea first came to him. His wife and children were on holiday in Scotland and he was at a loose end. In the 10 years since the war had ended – 11 since he and his crew had gone their separate ways – he had often wondered about what they were doing and what had become of their old base at Elsham Wolds. That August day he got into his car and drove up the coast, then took the A18 past Grimsby.
He was not sure what he would find, if anything, but as he got nearer he felt a quickening of his pulse. The two wooden posts that once marked the entrance to the base were still there. He drove between them. To one side, the guardroom had been reclaimed by nature, its timber frame entwined with weeds and bushes. He turned right, towards the airfield. The buildings were still there, but in ruins, their corrugated roofs rusted and dilapidated.
The road became so overgrown he was unable to drive any further, so he got out and looked for the narrow track that led to what was once their hut. Eventually he found it, wild and dense, but he could still walk down it. He and the lads had cycled along it countless times. On some mornings they would be rushing to get to the NAAFI and have their buns; on others they would be returning after an op, exhausted but happy to be alive.
He fought his way through the bushes and weeds. At the bottom he found it: the Nissen hut which had been their home for five months. The shell was still intact. He peered through one of the cracked windows. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, but eventually he could see metal debris scattered across the floor. Then he saw what he was looking for and smiled: the stove that had given them much-needed warmth during that freezing winter, now rusted but still in place.
He looked at the spaces where their beds had been. He could almost see Mac and Luff, Ken and Chalky, Eric and Bert, lying on their beds, the smoke from their cigarettes curling into the air; the roaring stove, fuelled with pilfered coke, warming the soles of their feet. Sam walked away, in search of the ablutions hut. His memories of it were less warm, in every sense. It too had been claimed by an unruly tangle of weeds. The whole place had the feel of a Wild West ghost town in the movies.
Sam sauntered back up the track, trailed by a host of memories. He found the squadron headquarters. Grunting pigs snuffled and fed where he and his crew once sat doing the crossword. The navigation briefing building was another crumbling shell. As he squinted through a shattered window into the gloom, he heard footsteps.
It was the farmer who owned the land. Sam introduced himself and explained that he was on a pilgrimage to see the place where he had once served. As the farmer spoke to him about his plans for the site, Sam realised he was standing on the exact spot where the transport waited to take crews to their aircraft.
The farmer pointed to the Air Traffic Control Tower and said it was haunted – by the ghost of a pilot who had been reported missing, believed killed, over Germany. Several people said that they had seen him, clad in his flying kit, wandering about the control room, or staring out at the deserted, weed-strewn runway.
Sam cursed himself for not bringing a camera. He said goodbye and offered his thanks. The farmer went back to his work and Sam returned to his car. He climbed inside and started to head for the exit. But then he had another idea. He headed towards the runway. Soon he was driving along it, swerving around the potholes. He took the car to the far end and swung it around, then stopped.
‘OK, everybody; here we go.’
Ken’s soft whisper came back to him, the words he said on this exact spot so many times. He imagined the caravan beside the tarmac on the left, a small crowd gathered around it to wave them off, huddled together, all of them wrapped up in layers of clothes to stave off the chill. He closed his eyes and saw the darkness and the quivering flames of the paraffin lamps at the edge of the runway.
He could picture the crew around him and smell the glycol, hot oil and sweat, mingling with the stale, familiar smell of G-George, their old warhorse of a Lancaster; Ken, breathing heavily, almost gasping, as he went through his take-off checks; Mac replying in his strong Scottish brogue; Chalky, the bomb aimer, sitting silently beside Sam on take-off, lost in thought. Behind them, Luff sat in front of his wireless set, watching the crowd at the caravan from the porthole on his left side. Eric was in the mid-upper turret, saying little but keeping a beady eye on Bert, the rear gunner, to make sure he didn’t nod off.
He opened his eyes and turned the key in the ignition, and drove down the runway, faster and faster. The car could only manage 60 mph with a following wind, but in his mind’s eye they were approaching a ton and the roar of four Merlin engines filled his ears. Eventually he slowed down. They would be in the air by now, the old bird rattling and shaking as she lifted them and their world-shaking load.
He turned and headed for the road back to Mablethorpe, wondering what had become of the men with whom he’d shared so much.
It took until 1978 for Sam to find out. The reunion had taken much planning, but the day finally came when he met Bert in Saltaire, near Bradford, and they headed for London in Sam’s Humber Super Snipe. It was late afternoon by the time they reached their hotel on Croydon’s Aerodrome Way. He and Bert sat in the lobby as the others arrived: Mac first, then Luff and Eric. Chalky walked in with his wife and they recognised him immediately. They shook hands and smiled, and within a few minutes it was as if they had been away on a week’s leave rather than spent 34 years apart. The only sadness was Ken’s absence. He lived in Australia and had not been able to make it.
All six of them piled into the Super Snipe and headed for the local pub. As they stood supping their pints, Sam realised it was not that different from the first time they had all met, when they had lined the bar at the Golden Fleece in Loughborough. Mac had booked a photographer and they posed for a snap, standing in the same positions as they had when their photo had been taken in January 1944.
They left a space where Ken had been. Sadly, it was never to be filled. Ken Murray died of cancer in 1991, before they had a chance to enjoy a full reunion.
Cyril Barton’s parents are buried beside him in Kingston cemetery. His brother Ken’s ashes are also interred there. Cynthia and Joyce visit regularly, often finding that people – strangers usually, touched by the Barton VC story – have left flowers and messages. One, on the 50th anniversary of his death, read: ‘Thank you for my future. From an “after the war” boy.’
Despite that attention, the VC, and a memorial that was unveiled in Ryhope in 1985 thanks to the ceaseless campaigning of Alan Mitcheson, who had been profoundly affected by Cy’s bravery, his sisters have not lost sight of the fact that the story of the Nuremberg raid was about more than the death of one man.
‘All those 55,000 men of Bomber Command who died,’ says Cynthia, ‘each one was an individual. We only know our boy, our brother, but all these thousands and thousands of other lads died too. It’s disrupted so many families, hasn’t it? Our brother died, but another 570 young men were killed that night. Those telegrams, like the one we received, went all over the country, didn’t they?’
CHAPTER 21
Journey’s End
In the early autumn of 1971, on the sort of sun-kissed September day that tempts people to forget that summer has passed, Fred Panton cycled to his poultry farm to make sure that his chickens were coping with the unseasonal heat. As he neared the hut, he could see his father and mother sitting outside the bungalow they had retired to, soaking up the warmth. His father waved across at him as Fred parked his bike.
‘I’ll be there in five minutes,’ he shouted.
Once he had made sure the chickens were all right he walked across to the bungalow, the sweat breaking out on his brow. As he got nearer, his father hauled himself out of his chair. There was a serious look on his face. Fred thought, what’s
up here?
‘Now, Fred,’ his father said, ‘I want you to get off to Germany and get me a photograph of our Chris’s grave.’
Fred was speechless. ‘He changed his mind, just like that. There was no clue or any indication before then that he wanted me to go. It was completely out of the blue.’
He was not going to waste this opportunity by grilling his father about what had caused his volte-face. He started planning his trip immediately. He had never been out of the country before, so it was more than a bit daunting, but each time he thought about it his heart would beat a little faster. He was desperate to go. He was finally getting the chance to see where his older brother had been laid to rest.
His travelling companion was Derek Pipkin, a friend he used to go running with in his bachelor days, and their transport was a Renault van. They spent night after night poring over maps, working out the best route to the small village near Bamberg, in Bavaria, where apparently the locals had buried Chris. It seemed an awfully long way to go, especially in a Renault van, but Fred was not going to be discouraged. A few weeks later he and Derek set off.
They reached Harwich at 10 in the morning, several hours before the ferry to Ostend was due to sail, but they had been petrified that they might miss it. It was nine at night by the time they docked in Holland, and pitch black. Fred gazed out from the stern of their ship into the vast, impenetrable darkness of mainland Europe, and grimaced. Have I got to drive through all of that? But then he thought of his brother – how, night after night, he had travelled over a much more hostile Europe, his life in mortal danger – and told himself to stop being so daft.
Though it took some time to adjust to driving on the other side of the road, they kept going through the night and into the following day, through Belgium, past Brussels and Liège and into Germany. Once over the border they skirted a succession of towns and cities that Chris would have flown over on his ops: Aachen, Cologne, Koblenz, Frankfurt, Wurzburg …
