Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers

by Bruce Lewis

  Unknown to them, the airfield was at that time in use for training glider pilots. They were learning to fly the giant troop-carrying Horsas which were constructed almost entirely of wood.

  Invisible without identification lights, a Horsa was coming in to land at that precise moment. The green ground-light was flashing for its benefit. Reg’s bomber was immediately overhead, the crew unaware of the glider’s presence. At about 150 feet the Wellington crashed down on to the Horsa.

  The Horsa disintegrated in a flurry of flying wood splinters, the impact killing both the glider pilot and his pupil. The Wellington hit the concrete with tremendous force, slewed off the runway, crushing a Jeep and injuring its driver. Every member of Reg’s crew, the bomb aimer, pilot, navigator and wireless/operator, was injured. Only Reg, in his rear turret, escaped unhurt. Facing backwards, he had felt the initial impact when the bomber hit the glider. Believing they had landed, he relaxed completely. It was this lack of tension, he believed, that saved him from injury when they hit the ground.

  In the well-proved RAF tradition Reg was detailed for flying again almost immediately – this time joining a crew made up mostly of Canadians. He was pleased to discover that his skipper, Squadron Leader Piddington, was an experienced pilot about to return for his second tour of operations. It was good luck, he thought, to team up with a man who had flown so many times against the enemy. A surer guarantee of survival than flying with a ‘sprog’ pilot, anyway.

  Back on night cross-country training flights, it was not long before Reg had a bit more excitement. Crews had been warned to keep an eye open for enemy night intruders – the all-too-potent, twin-engine Junkers 88. On this particular night they were flying over the Bristol/Taunton area when a twin-engine fighter suddenly dived at them. It did not fire, but as it broke away Reg raked its belly with his four Brownings.

  On landing back at base all hell was let loose. The attacking aircraft had not been a Ju88, but a ‘friendly’ night fighter – a Bristol Beaufighter. The shaken pilot landed at his squadron and filed his report immediately. Angry messages were exchanged between Fighter Command and Bomber Command. Each blamed the other for the incident. In the end Reg was exonerated. It was established that the fighter pilot was guilty of an error of judgement in swooping in at night on an RAF bomber – especially the easily identifiable ‘Wimpey’, with its characteristic ‘Wellington boot’silhouette.

  Most OTUs were now equipped with Wellingtons, on which crews came together for the first time. This gave them an opportunity to work as a team practising by day and night on crosscountry navigation and wireless exercises, fighter affiliation, circuits and ‘bumps’, and, on the ground, ditching and crash procedures. Meanwhile individual flight leaders continued to polish up their own skills within their particular categories, either on the turret firing ranges, in the signals cabin, or at the flight, bombing and navigation simulators.

  By this time, with the bomber offensive building in strength and effectiveness, and with the new four-engine bombers taking over more and more from the earlier two-engine types, an extra phase had been introduced into aircrew training. This was the establishment of HCUs – Heavy Conversion Units, in which crews converted to four-engine aircraft.

  They also took two additional members on to the team, a flight engineer to look after the increased demands imposed by the extra machinery, and a second gunner to man the mid-upper turret. Unpardonably, the extra turret, in common with that at the rear on these new generation ‘heavies’, sprouted nothing more effective than the derisory.303 with which RAF bomber crews had tried to defend themselves since the start of the war, and which would remain as their sole protection until the end. How many bomber crew lives could have been saved, given adequate defensive firepower, can never be estimated.

  Arriving at the RAF’s HCU at Topcliffe, after completing their course at Harwell, Squadron Leader Piddington’s crew converted on to the four-engine Handley Page Halifax. It was, of course, considerably bigger than anything they had flown before, but as Reg remarked at the time, ‘The gunners still sit in their turrets, the navigator at his desk, the wireless operator in front of his radio, the “driver” behind his controls, the bomb aimer stretched out in the nose. The only real difference is that we now have an extra “bod”, the engineer, to help keep us up in the air – and, we all have a bit more room!’

  Not unexpectedly they finished up in a Halifax Squadron – a Canadian one. 427 (Lion) Squadron was stationed at Leeming in Yorkshire and had recently converted from Wellingtons to Halifaxes. By the end of the war no squadron in 6 Group had carried out more raids. The squadron was rather pleased with itself because it had been ‘adopted’ by MGM Studios in Hollywood. One star in particular, Greer Garson of Mrs Miniver fame, kept in close contact with them, sending letters and food parcels at regular intervals.

  They completed a few operations without serious incident, but had an unusual experience when returning from Düsseldorf on the night of 11/12 June, 1943. A large raid this, and the first in which more than 200 Halifaxes had taken part. Suddenly they were attacked by a Messerschmitt 109. It was the usual situation – an agile fighter, armed with lethal 20mm cannon, against a lumbering bomber whose guns, as often as not, lacked the range even to reach the fighter, let alone cause it damage.

  There was only one defence – to ‘corkscrew’ out of danger. Reg had that moment shouted over the intercom telling his skipper to do just that when an amazing thing happened. A burst of tracer hosed out of the blackness towards the Messerschmitt and sent it plummeting towards the earth. For a bare instant Reg spotted the aircraft that had come to their rescue – a twin-engined, well-proportioned aircraft with pointed wings and a single fin. He recognized it at once. It was the incredibly fast RAF De Havilland Mosquito out on night intruder patrol. Its task was to seek out and destroy enemy fighters over Germany. But to do this at the very instant when the fighter was attacking a bomber must have been rare indeed. After that Reg was convinced they were a lucky crew!

  Shortly after this, their skipper was promoted to Wing Commander and sent as CO, with his crew, to 429 [Bison] Squadron, another Canadian unit. Here they were in the process of changing over to Halifaxes from Wellingtons, one of the last in 6 Group to do so. By the time the transfer of aircraft had been completed they would have lost more Wellingtons on operations than any other squadron in the Group.

  The Wellington had almost run its honourable course with Bomber Command. By October, 1943, it would have flown its final major operation in Europe. During its long tour of duty since the beginning of the war the ‘Wimpey’ had clocked up more sorties than those flown by Whitleys, Hampdens, the unfortunate Stirlings and the ill-fated Manchesters all added together.

  The deal for Piddington, the new CO of 429, was that he should return to flying Wellingtons until the conversion to the larger aircraft had been completed. After this, he and his crew, if they survived, would go back to flying Halifaxes. Morale in 429 had been shaken at that time. The squadron had lost three COs in the previous eight weeks. Wing Commander Piddington was ordered to restrict his personal trips to the minimum.

  Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris had taken over as the chief of Bomber Command in February of the previous year, when the numerical strength in aircraft had been little more than it was at the outbreak of war. During 1942 he had nurtured and expanded his force until now, in 1943, he felt in a position to mount a series of powerful ‘battles’. From March until July, he had concentrated his main blows against the Ruhr – Germany’s vast industrial area, made up of many towns in the country’s mid-west. This heavily defended part of the Fatherland was known to the bomber crews as ‘Happy Valley’.

  Reg and his crew had carried out most of their raids so far over ‘Happy Valley’. Now, in late July, Harris launched his ‘Battle of Hamburg’, a devastating series of attacks on Europe’s biggest port and Germany’s second largest city, housing one and three-quarter million people. It was planned to complete the operation in a
concentration of four heavy raids spread over ten days. The new CO of 429 decided to fly with his crew on the second of these missions – on 27/23 July, 1943.

  At briefing, Piddington pointed out the importance of the raid, the large number of aircraft taking part and, because of this, the need to maintain strict flying discipline within the bomber stream. He stressed how vital it was to stick to the timings that had been set down.

  On a cheering note he emphasised the success of ‘Window’, a radar counter-measure which had been used for the first time three nights previously over Hamburg. ‘Window’ consisted of metallic strips which, when dropped in thousands from the bombers, completely foxed the enemy’s defences, both on the ground and in the air. AA guns, searchlights, and night fighters became ‘blind’. The radar screens from which these defences had previously been directed were now blotted out by clouds of tinsel.

  But for the timid argument that this device could have been turned round by the Germans and used in raids against Britain, (hardly a major threat with the Luftwaffe’s bombers fully engaged in Russia) ‘Window’ could have been employed by Bomber Command as long ago as April of the previous year. It has been estimated that ‘Window’saved 100–130 RAF bombers, a minimum of 700 aircrew, during those ten nights of the ‘Battle of Hamburg’.

  All of which makes what follows particularly ironical. Piddington’s crew were lucky in having an especially fine Wellington. Aircraft, like people, varied enormously in the way they behaved, even among the same type. The CO’s ‘Wimpey’ must have been about the fastest ever built. In spite of his warnings to the squadron to maintain strict timing, they arrived over the target early. Fully aware of the dangers of orbiting Hamburg, the CO decided to start his bombing run without delay.

  Reg, ever watchful in his rear turret, guns swinging up and down, port and starboard, spotted an Me 109 with its navigation lights switched on on the starboard beam. As he opened fire the fighter’s companion, unnoticed, came in dead astern and blasted the Wellington without mercy. It was a clever trick which sent the bomber reeling towards the ground with no hope of recovery.

  They had become victims of the new tactics forced on the Luftwaffe by the introduction of ‘Window’. Wilde Sau [Wild Boar] was the code name for freelance single-seater fighters now given their head to seek out and destroy the bombers without assistance from radar.

  After a moment’s struggle, Reg slid open the doors of the turret. Grabbing inside the fuselage, he hauled his ‘chute from the rack, dragging it round and slamming it onto his chest harness. The hydraulics were out of action. Sweating in spite of the cold, he rotated the turret by hand and fell out backwards into space.

  How long he was unconscious he does not know. When he woke up, he was drifting through the night spinning gently. In his haste to leave the aircraft he had not realized that only one hook of his harness was attached to the parachute, which was why he was rotating.

  There were several other things that he did not know at the time. One was that this attack on Hamburg was the most devastating raid to date, at least forty thousand citizens meeting their deaths in the terrifying firestorm that ensued. Nor did he know that, apart from himself and the wireless operator, the rest of the crew had been killed.

  He drifted down some way to the north of Hamburg, landing in the middle of a decoy area – a system of shallow channels that the Germans filled with kerosene and set on fire to simulate a target. Fortunately for Reg it was not being used that night. After hiding his ‘chute, cutting off the tops of his flying boots and checking through his escape kit, he started heading north by northwest hoping to reach Denmark. He was already suffering from one frustration; the escape kit contained all the usual aids: water purifying tablets, Horlicks tablets, benzedrine tablets, compass, mini-razor, and of course the exquisitely printed silk maps. But the maps were useless. They only showed the Franco/Spanish border area!

  As he was trudging over Luneburg Heath an amazing thing happened. He had been hopping from tuft to tuft avoiding the boggy ground. At one point his foot slipped into the mire. Bending down to extricate himself, he noticed a sealed buff envelope lying in the grass. Tearing it open, he found it contained an RAF map of the location through which he was then travelling! He has spent the rest of his life trying to puzzle out how it got there.

  Walking only by night, hiding and resting by day, eating fruit, potatoes, turnips and broad beans, he drank as much milk as he needed from the churns placed conveniently at the entrances to farm lanes. Soon he reached the broad Kiel Ship Canal. Sitting down on a bank he watched the shipping – U-boats, merchantmen, naval vessels of various kinds including an E-boat that passed quite close to him. Reg gave the crew a friendly wave and they waved back. The fact that he was wearing RAF battledress, an air gunner’s brevet, and Flight Sergeant’s tapes and crown on his sleeves did not seem to strike any of the Germans as unusual. The blue-grey uniform was probably enough to create a satisfactory overall image.

  As dusk fell he started to walk along the towpath. In the distance he could see a large bridge spanning the canal, but could also make out the silhouettes of sentries patrolling it. Between him and the bridge a ship was moored. Dodging behind a bush, he lay down to think things over. After a while there was the sound of people approaching, but from opposite directions. The two sets of footsteps came to a halt in front of his hiding place. They belonged to a couple of sentries who had met for a chat and a smoke. The meeting went on interminably, and Reg, weary beyond words, especially German words, fell fast asleep. When he awoke, dawn was breaking and the sentries had gone. The throb of the ship’s engines broke into his consciousness and he hurried along the path. It was an awful moment. The ship, already clear of the bank, was gathering speed; flying from her stern was the flag of neutral Sweden.

  Disconsolately he retracted his steps. Narrowly avoiding a set- to with a bull by diving through a hedge, he finished up at a small railway station called Goebbels. There was a goods train waiting at the platform so he smuggled himself into one of the sentry-box-like cabins that were attached to the back of the wagons. Before long the train chugged off and did not stop until it reached the small town of Hohenwestedt.

  Here, unfortunately, a girl porter opened the door of his hideaway and discovered him huddled on the floor. As she rushed off to raise the alarm Reg ran out of the station and into the town. He was some way along the High Street when the station staff caught up with him and escorted him back to the station master’s office. Soon they were joined by a little policeman in a spiked helmet, and the local schoolmaster who acted as interpreter. They treated him respectfully enough, and, although insisting that he turn out his pockets, found nothing of significance, not even the steel file concealed in his tobacco pouch.

  Taken to the town jail, he was left on his own. Removing a metal door from a small stove in the corner of the cell, Reg used it as a tool to hack away at the plaster on the outside wall. By about 11 o’clock that night he had succeeded in gouging out a reasonably large hole in the inner brickwork, but then he heard footsteps in the corridor outside. It was the female porter. She had brought him black bread, jam, and a mug of coffee. Suddenly, as they heard more footsteps outside, the girl dived into the blanket cupboard taking the supper with her. A man entered the cell, carrying an identical meal. He was in a friendly, chatty mood and sat with Reg while he ate his food. ‘You know,’ the German said, ‘You should not have dropped any bombs on Hamburg, you should drop them all on Berlin instead!’

  After he had gone, the girl came out of the cupboard and handed Reg his second supper. What she thought of her fellow countryman’s remarks would never be known. After his double ration, he gave up on the brickwork and fell asleep. Next morning he woke to the sound of ‘Raus! Raus!’ It was yesterday’s friendly policeman who appeared to have had a personality change, shouting, gesticulating, and shoving him out into the corridor. Then he realized that the show was for the benefit of two Luftwaffe guards who had come to collect him.

/>   As he went down the police station steps he felt a heavy boot in his back to help him on his way. This time it was one of the guards. They bundled him into a car. As it sped away, the man who had kicked him apologised for his behaviour, and said, ‘I’m sorry but we have to put on a performance for the locals!’ Reg had remained at liberty for the best part of a month, and during the fighter attack had sustained wounds to his face and head. The Luftwaffe cleaned him up and gave him proper medical attention, including the removal of several bits of shrapnel. After this he was put on a train heading south.

  At Luneburg there was a delay. On the platform a Red Cross canteen had been set up and he and his escort helped themselves to coffee. One of the helpers turned out to be an English woman who was married to a German. She was hungry for news about Britain. All she had heard for nearly four years was Nazi propaganda in the German press. Reg was happy to assure her that her country was not a heap of rubble, the people were far from starving and the allies were well on the way to winning the war.

  At Dulag Luft, near Munich, he felt as if he was taking part in an RAF training film. His interrogators were classic examples of all that he had been warned about. First the ‘friendly’ type asking for information ‘on behalf of the Red Cross’. ‘It is necessary to know these things so your poor parents’ minds can be put at rest.’ Then the bullyboy: ‘We can find no evidence that you are an RAF flyer. Unless you can give us details about your squadron, we shall have you shot as a spy.’ Reg knew this was all bluff, at least he hoped it was and that his persecutor had ‘read the script’!

  Having surmounted the first two hurdles, he now looked forward to the concluding part of the ‘film’, where unsuspecting aircrew were wined and dined and had glamorous female company lavished on them as part of a softening-up process. To Reg’s disappointment the last ‘reel’ must have been lost, and he never received what he considered to be his just reward for keeping his trap shut.