by Alec Brew
He nursed the faltering Pegasus engine for another 20 minutes as they struggled forward, bouncing around in a Force 8 gale. Although Snow was sending an SOS, reception was impossible as they were out of range of all ground stations.
Then, when they estimated they were still about 15 miles from Greenland, the port engine stopped. They were at less than 1000 feet, and as Coffman glided the stricken aircraft towards the stormy sea, they could see icebergs all around. A huge one, towering 100 feet out of the sea, loomed ahead. Coffman steered for the calmer sea in the lee of this behemoth. As his two companions braced themselves Coffman ditched the aircraft successfully, without the shattering crash they were expecting. The aircraft’s dinghy was stored in the port engine nacelle, and was released automatically when the aircraft struck the water. This was a very welcome feature of the Hampden, which meant the crew did not have to man-handle it out of the fuselage as on most other aircraft; this probably saved their lives. The three of them grabbed the emergency kit and struggled out onto the wing, with the gale lashing round them and the icy sea breaking all around.
The dinghy was inflated and bobbing about alongside the wing. They were able to step into it, though they were already soaked through, and cut the cord securing it to the aircraft. Within 70 seconds of hitting the sea, the Hampden lifted its tail and slid beneath the waves. All they could do was to begin paddling west in the direction of Greenland, hoping they would not be run down by the icebergs that towered all around them. As darkness fell, they could still hear the bergs colliding and crashing, cracking like the sound of heavy artillery.
Frozen stiff, cold and wet, they paddled on, as much to keep up their body heat as anything, but certain they would have to reach the coast to survive. When they became overdue an air search would have been put into motion, but they were only a tiny dinghy in a huge ocean.
As dawn broke they were only a mile from the coastline. Able to see their destination, they paddled on, but as they neared the shore the coastal eddies tossed the dinghy back and forth. Rising from the sea just off shore was a huge 3000 feet, black rock, named Umanarsuk. It seemed to offer a safer and more immediate haven and they paddled into a sheltered cove.
56. Hampden aircrew examine their dinghy, which was housed in the wing. Captain Coffman and his crew owed their lives to it.
They clambered onto a slippery shelf of rock and dragged their dinghy out of the water. They could see across the narrow stretch of water, only 50 yards wide, to the mainland, but it seemed far too dangerous to cross, and too cold to swim. They decided to wait for rescue where they were, and clambered up to a ledge about 100 feet above the sea, dragging their dinghy and deflating it to provide them with some shelter.
Within two hours of huddling together on their narrow ledge the three men heard the sound of aircraft overhead. The headquarters of the Atlantic Ferry Unit in Montreal had ordered an air search once the Hampden was known to be overdue and search planes were sent out from Iceland, Goose Bay and Newfoundland. The three men fired Very lights every time they heard engines, but there was a storm of sleet and snow immersing them in a cold grey blanket and the aircraft had to fly at altitude to avoid the Greenland ice cap.
They had twenty-seven cartridges with their Very pistol. In the emergency kit were forty-five malted milk tablets, twelve sealed pints of water, four squares of barley sugar, some chewing gum, some Benzedrine (amphetamine) tablets, a first aid kit, a yellow distress flag and a mirror, which could be used as a heliograph. In addition, each of them had some chocolate in their pockets, though this had been soaked in sea water.
They erected the distress flag, though not hopeful that anyone would see it, as their location was only visible from one direction. They planned a ration of the supplies, which would last seven days. Each was apportioned two malted milk tablets and a third of a pint of water per day, together with a small piece of chocolate. After four days huddled on their freezing slab of rock they began to despair of rescue, and halved the ration, though there was no shortage of water as they could eat snow, the only comfort that their perilous refuge afforded them.
The weather, already bad, became worse, and the storm force winds blew away their distress flag. The seas were so rough that the waves drenched their tiny ledge, even though it was 100 feet above the sea. They struggled higher up the barren rock and found an even narrower ledge about 250 feet above the crashing waves. For three days the storm raged, and the wild seas smashed against Umanarsuk and icebergs crashed into it.
After nine days of cold, desperate waiting, their spirits began to ebb, and they cut their ration even further to half a malted milk tablet a day. How they had survived so long in wet, freezing clothes as Arctic storms whipped around them is a testament to human endurance. On the morning of the ninth day they saw a small ship about 15 miles off shore. They took Benzedrine tablets that they had been saving for such an occasion, and fired six Very lights. The sky was overcast so they could not use the mirror to signal. After half an hour the ship turned away and left, and they subsided in disappointment.
That night a storm of snow and sleet hit the rock, and with their rations gone they faced up to an imminent death. In the morning they were too cold even to sit up, but when they heard the drone of an aircraft at low altitude, Coffman swallowed another Benzedrine tablet and fired one of the few remaining Very lights. But the aircraft climbed and flew away.
On the tenth night they struggled to keep one another awake, believing that to fall asleep would mean certain death.They lay frozen in their makeshift tent as dawn crept over them. They were all desperately thirsty and Snow offered to creep out and fetch some snow for them to eat. Shortly afterwards, he crawled back to inform them the unbelievable news that there was a stationary ship about 8 miles away.
They all crawled outside, and sure enough there was a small two-masted ship, heaved to offshore. Just at that moment the sun shone from behind the grey clouds. They began flashing with the heliograph mirror, but for three hours there was no response from the ship.
The ship was Norwegian, The Polar Bjorn, carrying some American Army officers to Greenland. They had heaved to with engine trouble while they made repairs. One of the American officers, Major John Crowell, came up on deck for a breath of fresh air. Crowell was an experienced man in Northern climes. He had been in charge of establishing and operating one of three weather stations, Crystal One, Two and Three, built by the Americans in Canada’s Arctic North East. He had been landed on an island in Frobisher Bay and had built Crystal Two, together with a small airstrip and operated it through the previous winter. Crowell had been chosen for the job because he had been the mate on a schooner exploring Frobisher Bay a few years before.
On the deck of The Polar Bjorn Crowell saw a gleam from the barren rock to the east, but thought it nothing more than the sun catching on a piece of ice or snow. Then he thought he saw a puff of smoke followed by a glint of light that arched down into the sea. What he had seen was the very last Very light cartridge being used up by the three survivors.
Crowell fetched his binoculars and alerted the Norwegian captain. They realised that someone was signalling with a mirror, but thought for a while that it might be part of a U-Boat crew luring them into a trap. A boat was lowered but a well armed party was sent ashore, in case the signals were being made by Germans. All they found were the three frozen airman, who all passed out before they could be brought to the warmth of the ship, which soon set sail for port. Within hours they were safely in a Greenland hospital, three very lucky men indeed.
57. The Hampden’s crew recovering in a Greenland hospital. Left to right: Robert Coffman, Norman Greenaway and Ronald Snow.
CHAPTER 17
A Dip in the Med
Flying down to Cannes in the south of France for a spot of sailing on the Mediterranean, has long been considered a very desirable way to pass the time. To have the flight paid for, and the boat supplied free of charge, would therefore seem to be a very attractive proposition. However,
not if you are the crew of a Halifax bomber, hoping to make an immediate return flight to England, without landing.
Beginning life as a First World War squadron, and one of the many casualties of the resulting peace, No. 35 Squadron, re-formed at Bircham Newton on 5 November 1940 as the very first Handley Page Halifax squadron, and flew its first operation with the new aircraft on 10 March 1941. It began receiving Halifax IIs in January 1942, and moved to RAF Graveley in Huntingdonshire in August 1942 as part of the newly formed Pathfinder Force. It began to receive the Bristol Hercules-powered Halifax III in October 1943, but did not fly any operations with it until December.
On 11 November 1943, Pilot Officer JR Petrie-Andrews’ crew were briefed as part of the Pathfinder Force on an operation against the railway marshalling yards at La Bocca, west of Cannes. These yards were on the main line between France and Italy. The task was to visually mark the target with green flares, which were to be dropped from not more than 10,000 feet. Despite the low height at which they were to operate over the target, they thought the sortie would be a piece of cake, a welcome relief from operations against the Ruhr, and Berlin. The total force operating would be 124 Halifaxes and 10 Lancasters, drawn from Nos 4, 6 and 8 Groups.
The south of France was considered a soft option compared with operations against Germany, but they were told that if they did get into trouble they could make for the island of Sardinia. Sardinia had just been occupied by the Allies following the Italian capitulation, but none of them thought, as they climbed aboard their Halifax, that this would be a haven they would need.
Petrie-Andrews’ crew were very experienced, having completed seven operations with No. 4 Group, before being transferred to the Pathfinder Force with which they had completed another thirty-one. This would actually be their first operation since the night of 22/23 October, when they had been to Kassel in Germany. They had been briefed three times for operations against Germany in November, on 3rd, 7th and 9th, but they had all been cancelled before take-off.
Their aircraft was still one of the Merlin-engined Halifax IIs, HR929, coded TL-E, which had been built by Handley Page at Cricklewood and was actually an ex-405 Squadron aircraft. The navigator, Flight Lieutenant Jack Armitage and the bomb-aimer, Pilot Officer R Backhouse were sited in the cleaned up all-glazed nose, without the gun turret of earlier marks. The rear gunner, Flight Sergeant NW Barnett, had four 0.303 inch machine-guns in his Boulton Paul Type E turret, and the mid-upper gunner, WOG Dale, also had four .303s in his Boulton Paul Type A Mk III upper turret, a version of the famous Defiant turret. The wireless operator was Flight Sergeant HRM Stroud, and the seventh member of the crew was the flight engineer, Pilot Officer JH Morgan.
They took off from Graveley at 18.31 hrs, and their route took them almost due south and over the French Alps. Until they neared the target area, they were untroubled by anti-aircraft fire or night fighters. After crossing the Alps, the starboard outer engine began to give trouble and then gave up the ghost completely. This was the seventh time they had lost one of their engines on operations, so they were neither surprised nor alarmed. Completing the flight on only three engines was not a problem.
They made their run over the marshalling yards at only 3000 feet, a very low height chosen to make sure they marked the target accurately, but placing them at risk of drawing fire from even the lightest anti-aircraft guns. Just after Backhouse called ‘Flares away’ from his seated bomb-aiming position in the nose, there was a burst of light anti-aircraft fire. They were hit in the port inner engine, which was immediately put out of action.
With two propellers feathered they were in serious trouble, without enough power to get them back over the mountains. The haven offered to them by the island of Sardinia, suddenly looked a timely blessing. They signalled their situation and their intentions to base, and Fight Lieutenant Armitage began working out a course for Sardinia.
They decided to fly on a southerly course until they reached the right latitude and then turn east. They felt this provided a better chance of making a safe landfall, avoiding Corsica. They did not want to miss Sardinia, relatively large though it was, and fly on blindly across the Mediterranean until they ran out of fuel.
They had just made their turn to the east, at a point Armitage estimated to be about 50 miles west of Sardinia, when one of the surviving engines coughed, spluttered and just faded away. Slowly, on the power of the remaining Merlin, the Halifax lost height. Eventually, Petrie-Andrews called them to take ditching stations, and as the aircraft made its last dive towards the sea, Armitage checked the time. It was still only 22.40 hrs. With most of the crew safely behind the main spar, facing aft, they were ready to ditch.
Petrie-Andrews levelled out and pulled off a masterly forced landing on the surface of the sea, touching down at about 100 knots. The aircraft shuddered from nose to tail as it hit the sea, but did not disintegrate. The glazed nose caved in and water rushed through the fuselage, sending Armitage swirling round as if he were in a whirlpool. Once the aircraft came to a halt, and the first rush of water was over, the Halifax was left floating on the sea, but filling quickly with water.
58. A Halifax in the sea just after ditching, but not that of Petrie-Andrews, who did not have the security of another aircraft overhead to record his plight.
The crew stumbled and fought their way to the escape hatch, bumping into all the debris that was floating around in the fuselage. The flight engineer, Morgan, was frantically hitting the dinghy release button, but nothing was happening. Armitage struggled up to him and they both tried to pull the manual release lever, but without success. Afraid that the Halifax might sink at any moment, taking them with it, Morgan grabbed an axe and they made their way to the escape hatch and out onto the port wing. The rest of the crew gathered here as he used the axe to smash the wing panel, which covered the dinghy.
When he smashed the panel off they pulled the dinghy out, inflated it, and tossed it into the sea. As they were climbing in Petrie-Andrews realised there were only six of them, and that Backhouse was missing. He struggled back into the fuselage with Armitage, looking for the missing bomb-aimer. Inside the fuselage there was a strong smell of petrol. The Halifax had a large extra fuel tank in the bomb-bay and that must have ruptured. They found Backhouse floating in the water, amidst all the debris. The water was up to their waists as they pulled Backhouse to the escape hatch and out onto the wing.
They lowered him into the dinghy, and followed him down, casting off the mooring rope. Just at that moment the stricken Halifax performed a slow roll, luckily away from them, and sank beneath the waves. They applied artificial respiration to Backhouse who eventually began to show signs of life. When he came to, he explained that he had been out on the wing with them, but had decided to go back in and get the individual ‘K’ Type dinghies, in case they could not free the crew dinghy. Inside, he had been overcome by the 100 octane fumes, and had passed out.
Within a few minutes of being in the dinghy, most of the crew were sick, not because of the movement of the waves, the sea was quite calm, but probably because of a combination of the petrol they had swallowed and shock. Feeling much better after this, they began to examine the dinghy to find out what supplies there were.
There was no food at all, though someone produced an apple from their pocket, and there were not many tins of water. There was a dinghy radio and a supply of Very lights. Stroud, the wireless operator, began to rig the wireless but discovered that it was damaged, and beyond help. Petrie-Andrews noticed that the wind was blowing from the west, and so he took his parachute and made a sail with it, using two radio poles as masts, which had to be held upright manually. Taking it in turns to hold the poles in the brisk wind, they seemed to be making around 2 knots through the water, with every hope of eventually reaching the coast of Sardinia.
None of them were able to sleep that night, and when morning came, with it came a weather front sweeping in from the west. This tossed the dinghy about on a freshening sea, and very
soon it was impossible to hold their makeshift masts aloft. They were soon crouching under the dinghy’s canopy, seeking what meagre shelter it provided as they were tossed around on the ever-increasing seas.
All through 12 November they were tossed around on the sea, no one managing to get any sleep. That night some of them fell into a brief sleep, totally exhausted, but during the night were rudely awoken when the dinghy overturned. After much desperate effort the seven of them, working together with a great deal of shouting in the wind and darkness, managed to turn the dinghy the right way up, and hauled themselves back aboard.
Dawn on 13 November brought sudden new hope, as they could see the lighthouse on Asinara Island away to the right. Asinara lay just off Cape Falcone, the north-west corner of Sardinia. They manoeuvred the dinghy towards the island with the canvas paddles, but the closest they could get was about a mile. Petrie-Andrews wanted to dive in and swim to the lighthouse, but the sea was still rough and the others persuaded him not to try. The dinghy slid by the island still on course for Sardinia, but the visibility slowly worsened.
Nevertheless, at about 2 pm they sighted a cruiser going in the opposite direction, and their hopes soared once more. They fired off several Very lights, but the warship never saw them and sailed away, leaving them disappointed and depressed. There were only six tins of drinking water left, and the grim prospect of not being rescued for some time, led them to severely ration the remainder.
The wind dropped in the evening, which allowed them to re-erect the sail. There was a strong swell but the night passed uneventfully. The monotony continued through 14 November, and they only had a few sips of water. They were grateful that it was November, and the full heat of the Mediterranean summer was not beating down on them. Just after 4 pm that day someone suddenly shouted ‘There’s land !’ There, in clear view, was the northern tip of Sardinia.
