Operation Thunderflash
Richard Townsend Bickers
© Richard Townsend Bickers 1981
Richard Townsend Bickers has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1981 by Robert Hale
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five - Bill Bracken
Six
Seven - Bill Bracken
Eight
Nine - Bill Bracken
Ten
Eleven
Twelve - Bill Bracken
Thirteen
Fourteen - Bill Bracken
Extract from Fighters Up by Richard Townsend Bickers
One
Lancaster was a fine, dignified name for a great and stately aeroplane.
That was what I thought the first time I ever set eyes on one; in the spring of 1943, at Operational Training Unit.
I was not long back from Canada then, where, under the Empire Air Training Scheme, I had learned to fly and had got my wings. Although I had never seen a Lanc. before, I knew quite a lot about them: such as, that for every Lancaster shot down, these aircraft dropped 132 tons of bombs. The comparison with the RAF’s two other four-engined heavy bombers was impressive. For every Halifax lost, only 56 tons of bombs were dropped; and for every Stirling, 41 tons.
Being selected to fly a Lanc. imposed not only a heavy responsibility, especially on a 19-year-old, but also gave one a formidable-reputation to which to live up.
Lancs. flew their first operation on the third of March 1942, when four aircraft of No 44 Squadron laid mines in the Heligoland Bight: not a dramatic sort of op. and not typical of the kind of sortie that was to make their name famous. Their first bombing sortie came a week later, when two of them, from the same squadron, were in a raid on Essen: a tough initiation, for the flak around Essen was notorious.
The first Victoria Cross won in a Lancaster was awarded to Squadron Leader Nettleton for a low-level attack on Augsburg in April 1942. The second went to Wing Commander Guy Gibson for leading the dam-busters in May 1943, shortly before my crew and I were posted to our squadron.
Other achievements of our aircraft which gave us great pride were that on 18th August 1942 they had taken part in the first operation of the new Pathfinder Force; and were capable of carrying the biggest-ever bomb, an 8,000-pounder.
The seven of us who formed a crew were pretty much in awe of the Lancaster’s reputation before ever we finally stood beside one on that dew-damp April morning, looking up at its 161-ton (empty) bulk, overshadowed by its 102-foot wings and the height of its aggressive nose 20 feet above the tarmac. We marvelled at its length, only six inches under 70 feet. We drew comfort from the power suggested by its four 1,640 horse power Merlin engines that give it a maximum speed of 287 miles an hour and a cruising speed of 210. We pointed out to each other the .303 Browning machineguns with which it bristled: two in the nose, two in the dorsal turret and four in the tail.
For my part, I felt humble contemplating this giant. It normally carried a total bomb-load of 14,000 lb. which gave it a take-off weight of 30+ tons. Was I really going to be taught to take that enormous bulk off the ground, with the added responsibility of six other men’s lives in my hands? I, Bill Bracken, newly commissioned pilot officer; who had been, a year ago, still a sixth-form schoolboy? Were my nineteen years, my five feet nine inches and ten-and-a-half stone adequate for the task?
I glanced covertly at my companions as, with varying degrees of excitement showing on their faces, they inspected the first Lancaster in which any of us was to fly.
The two other officers in the crew stood one on either side of me: both also newly commissioned and still a little self-conscious in their officers’ peaked caps that we all found so tight around the skull at first after the light and casual forage caps we had worn as airmen. Of course we could have worn equally comfortable ones as officers, but it was all part of our pride in our new status that we sported formal service dress headgear. When we got to our first squadron we would take out the stiffening hoop around the crown and make them even more “operational” by jamming a pair of headphones over them while we flew on air tests and local flights, instead of wearing helmets. But all that emancipation was in the future. For the time being we were still raw sprogs who could just as likely fail our OTU course as pass it. A humiliation that did not bear thinking about.
Nick Compton, on my right, was an old acquaintance. We had been at school together, but not in the same house: and Nick had been a considerable blood, whereas my own achievements, at least the sporting ones which confer the major schoolboy distinctions, were modest. Compton had been Captain of Cricket and a first XV colour, whereas I had only scraped into the seconds at both cricket and rugger. He had captained the first squash team and been a record-breaking sprinter. I had merely represented my house at squash and fives, and the best I ever did on the running track was to come a consistent third in the half-mile and mile every year, in successive age groups.
Nick Compton was a few months older than I, so had joined the Service before me: but navigators’ training took longer than pilots’ and we had emerged from the chrysalis simultaneously.
It added to my satisfaction in winning my wings to know that the great Nick Compton had originally been a pupil pilot, was washed out at the end of his first 10 hours under instruction, and had never gone solo. With my 200 hours, quickly accumulated in the good Canadian climate, I felt superior to him for the first time in an acquaintanceship that had begun six years before.
Looking at his six-foot, broad-shouldered frame and remembering how scornful his dark brown eyes could look, I wondered how he felt about putting his life in the hands of a schoolfellow who had never scored more than 60 runs in his best innings or more than two tries in any school match. The fact that I had been top of my form most terms and won all the essay prizes going probably lessened rather than enhanced my standing with him.
On my other side, Bruce Donaldson, my bomb-aimer, stood characteristically four-square, no-nonsense, and as Scots as though he were wearing the kilt. Sandy-haired, freckled, shortish and deep-chested, I already regarded him as a rock on whom the unwary would wreck themselves and to whom the weaker could turn for reassurance. Bruce came from the Highlands and was almost exactly my own age, although he looked and behaved with a maturity that made him seem older. I thought it must be due to a dour family and the years he had spent at a bleakly spartan boarding school on some Scottish mountain. I found out by accident that he was a tremendous rugger player, a stand-off half with a national reputation, a rock-climber who had already won some renown, and a fly-fisherman of wondrous skill. He was dreadfully shy about all this and would knit his sandy brows and mutter a deprecating “Och, aye, well...it wasna much...” when anyone attempted to bring these matters up or to praise him.
What, I asked myself, were his hidden thoughts about this green Sassenach who was going to fly him into battle?
My four sergeants were an interestingly mixed bag. Ron Emery, the flight engineer, was a former flight mechanic with six years’ service which he had started at the age of 17. He had served as a mechanic on bomber squadrons for the first three years of the war before some sense of shame or wish for revenge on the Germans had prompted him to volunteer for air crew. He was a Midlander, from Warwick: a whippet of a man, short, thin, sharp-featured, a vicious featherweight boxer who had been second string for the RAF team and used to pick fights with men three times his size when he was drunk or when he was out with
a girl; and invariably won them. He had reddish hair, darker than Bruce’s, and pale eyes under brows bulging with scar tissue from his seventy-odd bouts.
I doubted if he thought much of the idea of going into action under the leadership of a youngster who was only a temporary member of his Service as well as four years his junior.
Dan Feldman, the wireless operator-air gunner, was a Jew from Leeds whose family were in the tailoring trade. He had come into the Service three years earlier, as a ground wireless operator. His family had, understandably, been against his volunteering for aircrew: various members of it had survived pogroms in Russia and escaped from Nazi Germany. He had, with good Jewish filial obedience, obeyed the wishes of his parents; but when both were killed in an air raid he had put himself forward at once to be an air gunner. At 21, he was self-assured, good-humoured, and ran a smart Singer Le Mans sports car for which he seemed to obtain petrol as easily as the rest of us could get a pint of bitter.
He was much too courteous and tactful to give any hint of lacking confidence in a sprog like me.
Keith Gray and Eddie Hill were both 18 years old and had been rapidly through their training as straightforward air gunners, to arrive at OTU with the rest of us. Keith was burly, pale and even-tempered; a Geordie from Sunderland who could have continued his family avocation of coal-miner and avoided military service had he wished. The rest of us found it difficult to understand all he said, but I gathered that he had two ambitions in life: to become a professional footballer and, in order to bring this about as speedily as possible, to have a go at them unprintable Nazis himself. His beefy frame occupied the mid-upper turret. Keith had mousey hair and innocent dark blue eyes and smoked a horrid stubby little pipe.
Eddie Hill, my rear gunner, was a Cockney from Clerkenwell. I thought straight away that whereas Ron Emery had acquired a vast amount of cunning and ability to survive through his hard years of service in the ranks, Eddie was born with those instincts and many more that must make him indestructible. He could turn his hand to anything and he seemed to me to have as many contacts as a middle-aged tycoon. Within 48 hours of arrival at OTU he seemed to have influence with the Station Warrant Officer, the flight sergeant in the Equipment section, the MT Officer, the flight sergeant in charge of the Service Police, the Orderly Room NCOs, the prettiest Waafs. The first evening we all went out together he led us straight to the best pub and was treated as though he had been an habitue for years. When I complained that I had broken my coffee mug he replaced it within minutes although they were like rubies to find. He had an astonishing knowledge of both horse and greyhound racing (having frequented Plumpton, Hurst Park and Epsom as a bookie’s help); boxing and all-in wrestling (he spent much time at The Ring, Blackfriars); and the theatre and music hall (having been a patron of the gallery in every thespian establishment in London since the age of seven). He was almost as dark as Dan Feldman, high-complexioned, straight-backed as a guardsman, swaggering, full of fun and dirty jokes, irresistible to Waafs, Ats and barmaids; and probably no more honest than he found it prudent to be. I would have trusted Eddie Hill with my life, as I would have trusted any other man in my crew; but he was the only one to whom I would never have entrusted my girl or my sister; or, for a different reason, any of my elderly relations: he would have conned them out of their last penny in the wink of an eye.
I rather took it for granted that these last two, because they were even younger than I was, and separated by the special status that attached to being a fully-fledged multi-engine pilot compared with being cannon-fodder in a gun turret, would accept my competence, authority and leadership without many qualms.
Two
Our instructors at OTU were all operational veterans who had flown at least one tour; which meant, as a rule, 30 sorties against the enemy. We had respected our instructors in Canada, some of whom were also on rest after a tour of ops.; but many of them had been flying instructors throughout their service and would never see action: some, indeed, had only recently completed their own training in Canada or the USA and were immediately given an instructors’ course, then turned loose on total novices. But our attitude to our instructors at OTU was more than respectful, it was one of awe and reverence.
Many of them were decorated, and not a few had more than one medal for gallantry. These, we almost worshipped.
Over and above the ability to instruct, they had to be able to instill confidence in us and to give us hints and warnings on what to expect and how to behave when we were under fire from flak or enemy fighters, or caught in searchlights. These were the aspects of my training to which I applied myself with the greatest concentration. I had been lucky enough to be assessed above average throughout my flying training, so believed that my skill as a pilot would continue to increase with experience; but there was no way to gain experience of being shot at except by being shot at: and t hen, the first time may well be the last: so the sensible thing was to learn as much about it as I could from those who had abundant knowledge to pass on.
Of one thing I was determined: no one must have any fear of dying with me.
That, to me, was paramount even over doing our basic job well: namely, to find our targets with absolute certainty and bomb them with the maximum possible accuracy.
This did not mean that I put our safety first and our technical skill as a bomber crew second. What it did mean was that I aspired to be an all-round efficient bomber pilot, which meant knowing how to survive on the way to a target against any odds in order to hit it hard and true; and to survive whatever fighter and anti-aircraft dangers we had to on our way back to base, in order to be able to fly and bomb again. It was obvious to me that a crew confident in its pilot would be a happy and relaxed one and therefore efficient. The more often I not only reached the target but also pranged it well and truly, and then got the boys home unscathed, the better we would all do our job.
None of us, unless he was certifiable, could be looking forward to our first op.; apart from the obvious anticipation prompted by curiosity and the attraction of any new thrill: but it was not the first op. that was going to count, it was the ones after that when we all knew the reality.
Even so, if all went well we would still not really know what it was like to be in an aircraft at night, 20,000 ft. above the earth, with holes in the fuselage and wings, dead and wounded men aboard, and the floor slippery with oil, hydraulic fluid and blood; with an engine or two knocked out and the control surfaces damaged.
Part of me hoped that we would never find out, and part of me wanted very much to know: provided, in some miraculous way, there were no dead or wounded among my crew. To go through all that, to find out all about oneself, and to live through it, must be the ultimately satisfying and fulfilling experience.
I soon began to feel superior to all those cocky fighter pilots in their Spitfires, Hurricanes, Beaufighters and Mosquitoes who didn’t have six other men to weld into a team.
*
The posting notice said we were to join a Squadron at Belton.
“Where’s that?” asked Nick Compton, looking disdainful. “Some obscure hole, I’ll bet: why can’t we go to a squadron at Scampton or Woodhall Spa or Mildenhall or Finningley: any of the First Team stations, as it were?” He caught my eye, reflected on what he had said about “First Team” and grinned disarmingly.
Promptly Eddie Hill told him “Belton’s a good posting: easy to get to The Smoke from there, by train or ‘itching dahn the Grite Norf Rowd. (And that is the last time I shall try to reproduce his Cockney speech phonetically). Lincoln’s not far, and ‘s easy to get to Nottingham or Doncaster. Prettiest tarts in the country, in Nottingham, aren’t they? Apart from London, of course.”
“I find Lincoln, Nottingham and Doncaster totally resistible,” said Nick. “How far is it from London?”
Sergeant Hill knew that too, and a lot more about the station besides. “T’riffic record Belton’s got,” he assured us. “Both the squadrons there have been on all the big targets: w
e’ll soon get our tour finished.”
“How d’you know all that?” Bruce asked.
“I thought everyone knew about Belton,” was Eddie’s answer, in feigned innocence.
Keith Gray, tamping horrible black shag into his pipe bowl, said “What’s the Station Commander’s name, then, Eddie?” He grinned, sure he had his friend by the short and curlies.
“Group Captain Jevons,” replied Hill at once. “And the squadron CO’s called Wing Commander Leatham: he’s a real tiger, isn’t he?”
Tiger or not, Wg. Cdr. Leatham looked friendly enough when we reported to him.
The Squadron Adjutant, a grey-haired flight lieutenant, stood at the Squadron Commander’s left elbow and appeared to be contemplating us with disfavour. We learned later that his facial expression was misleading: it was simply that, as a brand new crew, we expected everyone to regard us sceptically. The adj. wore a pilot’s brevet and 1914-18 ribbons, and was obviously a reservist or a second-time-around volunteer too old, or unfit, to fly.
The wing commander was a tall, slim, good-looking man of about 34 with a DFC; and the small brass “A” of the Auxiliary Air Force on each lapel of his tunic. He was tanned and exuded good health and energy. His eyes were the grey shade one so often finds in people with exceptionally good eyesight and his fair hair was wavy in a way which, with the superlative cut of his uniform, made him look dashingly elegant; like, I thought, the popular image of a fighter pilot rather than a bomber boy.
He chatted to us with cheerful informality for a few minutes, before asking the others to leave me alone with him, and they trooped out behind the adjutant.
We had been standing, for there were only three visitors’ chairs in the CO’s office, and now Wg. Cdr. Leatham invited me to sit down and seated himself.
“You’re known as Bill, I expect?” he said, offering me a cigarette from a gold case.
Operation Thunderflash Page 1
