Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers

by Bruce Lewis

  About this time I grabbed the opportunity to visit my girlfriend who was studying at the veterinary college in Edinburgh. It was disastrous. Our lives had taken different courses. Conversation, once so free and easy, was now strained and stilted. We no longer spoke the same language. It was the end of a friendship that had lasted for five years. At a college dance I was filled with disdain for the male students, a lot of them older than my friends who had volunteered to fly. To them the war was something fought by other people. All they understood was the importance of preparing for a career that would set them up in life when peace returned. It seemed unjust.

  Eventually moving on to Halifaxes at Lindholme, we were joined by Ken Ward, a cool, competent flight engineer, while a wiry little Welshman, Ted Morgan, came into the crew to man the mid-upper turret. Jack was commissioned at this time and became a Pilot Officer.

  In the Halifax the navigator, wireless operator and bomb-aimer were all located in the nose. It seemed to me an ill-thought-out arrangement, because one burst of flak could wipe out the whole navigation team. Also the heating arrangement was odd. Coils of flexible pipes festooned the deck emitting hot air. We cradled them in our laps, stuffed them up our trouser legs, or pushed them down our shirts. One day we were flying at 20,000 feet. It was cold. I felt liquid dripping down my neck. Assuming this discomfort came from a leaking hydraulic pipe, I called up Jack on the intercom. He sat immediately above me in the pilot’s position:

  ‘Jack, I think we’ ve got a leak somewhere.’

  Silence.

  ‘Jack can you hear me? I think there’s a leak somewhere in the hydraulic system. It’s running down my bloody neck.’

  ‘Bruce.’ A long pause. ‘Bruce. Don’t quite know how to put this.’ [Rest of crew very silent]. ‘You know our crew “piss-tin”?’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘Well, Ken forgot it. He’s just lent me his brown paper sandwich bag, and I’m afraid the bugger’s burst!’

  In our early training in Blackpool an irate Corporal O’ Mally was fond of telling me: ‘You, bloody Lewis, should be shat on, and pissed on, from a great height!’ When, by coincidence, we met years later, I was able to tell him his dream had come true.

  Inexplicable things happened sometimes. Once, after a crosscountry of just over six hours, we landed at base in mid-afternoon. The aircraft had behaved impeccably. After a quick refuel a fresh crew climbed aboard, accompanied by a Flight Lieutenant ‘screen’ pilot. We watched the Halifax roar down the runway, climb into the air, then dive into the ground and explode.

  On another occasion we had engine trouble and put down at Fulbeck, a USAAF station. A swarm of jeeps tore towards us, disgorged over a score of GIs full of enthusiastic curiosity. They clambered all over our Halifax exploring every nook and cranny, but showed no interest in us. Later, a Top Sergeant took us in tow and looked after us very well. We asked him why his chest was bare of medals, unlike the other American servicemen. In reply he pulled open a drawer in his cabin. It was stuffed with ‘gong’s. ‘Yer see boys, I’m what they call a veteran. After a time yer kinda git tired of these goddam things. Why, I got three for crossin’the Atlantic!’

  Lunch in the mess was a curious experience. We sat at long trestle tables and rank seemed of no consequence. Unshaven, grease-covered fitters rubbed shoulders with captains and majors. The Colonel was admittedly at the head of the table. He was a lean young man, with close-cropped hair and dressed in a leather jacket. In a moment he began to lose patience. Banging his fork on the table-top he yelled:

  ‘Cam on! Cam on! What’s keepin’ yer, Wilmer? Let’s eat chow!’

  The kitchen hatch flew up and the face of a fat, sweating man in a singlet and a chef’s hat appeared in the frame. Addressing his Commanding Officer, he said: ‘Hold yer water, bud! It’s a’ cumin’!’

  Jack leaned across and whispered: ‘Imagine us yelling at “Groupy” like that!’

  When the ‘chow’ did arrive we stared at it in wonder. Huge steaks hung over the edge of every plate. Each plateful represented more than an Englishman’s meat ration for a month. We waited eagerly for the arrival of the ‘two veg’. Instead, big cans of peanut butter were dumped in front of us. This was plastered thickly on the steaks which were then surrounded with pineapple chunks. A dressing of sugar, liberally sprinkled over the lot, completed the main course. Pudding was a choice of exotic-flavoured ice-creams, the like of which we had never tasted in our lives. As I ate, I thought of my young brother and sister and felt guilty.

  We stayed overnight and continued to enjoy the hospitality of our kind American hosts, while their engineers generously sorted out the fault in our aircraft. When we flew the forty-minute trip back to base the following day, I believe it was the only occasion when we all felt airsick!

  A few evenings later I went to the cinema with a Land Girl, attractive in tight green sweater and riding breeches. After the show she kindly invited me back to her place. Here the food on offer was a little different. She set in front of me a bowl of what looked like a mixture of cold ground rice and porridge. As I was eating it, more out of politeness than enjoyment, I asked her what she did in the Land Army. ‘Oh,’she said, ‘I’m a rat exterminator. I mix in poison with the sort of stuff you’ re eating there. It soon gets rid of them!’ Always ready to take a hint I was on my bike and pedalling furiously back to base without waiting to see what other delights were in store.

  Completing 55 hours 35 minutes on Halifaxes, we moved on to No 1 Lancaster Finishing School, Hemswell. The mighty Lancaster at last. At Hemswell we learned the difference between a good aircraft and an outstanding one. It took Jack West and the rest of us only four days to familiarize ourselves with the bomber that flew like a bird.

  On 22 April, 1944, our last day at LFS, we flew night circuits and landings from 0330 until 0600. Fighter Affiliation exercises, with attacking fighters, were laid on from 1610 until 1655 in the afternoon. Then our course finished with a spell of bombing practice from 1735 until 1850 that evening. This businesslike urgency convinced us we would soon be on missions over Germany (Francis Kelsey had passed through here less than two weeks previously on his way to 625 Squadron).

  Being sent to a particular squadron was, I suppose, every bit as chancy as being picked to fly with a certain crew. Although we did not realize our luck at the time, we had the good fortune to be posted to 101 Squadron. It had a fine reputation, particularly for bombing accuracy, dating back to the First World War. Now it was doing a unique job. Apart from playing its full part in bombing raids, it also carried a device known as ABC, ‘Airborne Cigar’.

  The Lancasters on this ‘Special Duties’squadron carried an eighth crew member, a second wireless operator known as a ‘Special Operator’. These ‘Specials’spoke German and operated powerful radio transmitters that interfered with the instructions being sent out by German ground controllers to their night fighters. 101 [pronounced One-Oh-One] Lancasters had two substantial aerials pointing upwards forward of the mid-upper turret, and a third, pointing downwards below the nose. Inside the fuselage the rest-bed, amidships, had been removed to make room for the bulky ABC equipment. The ‘Specials’ worked in isolation in the body of the aircraft and saw nothing of what was going on outside from the time they took off until they landed back at base. As wireless operator I had a warning button which I pressed to bring the ‘Special’ on to crew intercom in moments of emergency.

  When I had joined the RAF more than two years previously, and shambled through the gates of Padgate camp with an odd assortment of fellow civilians, the first person who had spoken to me was a little, thick-set man with black curly hair. Clutching a battered fibre suitcase in one hand, he had raised a clenched fist under my nose and said: ‘Greetings Comrade!’ He was Ron Herschkovitch, a Russian Jew. All his family had disappeared into Nazi concentration camps. The best way he could think of getting back at the Germans was to join Bomber Command.

  We had gone different ways during training, but now here he was
again, a ‘Special’ at 101. He had already established himself as a ‘squadron character’ with a boisterous sense of humour. When he flew, he always wore running shoes strung round his neck. ‘Well look at me,’ he would exclaim, raising his arms, shrugging his shoulders, and turning sideways to emphasize his profile. ‘If I‘m shot down, what chance would I have against those Nazi bastards? All I can do is don these plimsolls – and run like hell!’

  Because of its role in Bomber Command, 101 was often operating, to give protection to the rest of the stream, when other Lancaster squadrons in 1 Group were resting. It sustained a greater number of casualties than any other squadron in the RAF during World War Two according to Andrew Brookes whose book Bomber Squadron at War is a full account of the work of 101 Squadron.

  There were compensations. ‘Bomber’ Harris himself, fed up with trying to get things done through official channels, arranged for a small Lincolnshire firm, Rose of Gainsborough, to provide rear turrets sprouting heavier twin.5 Browning machine guns, in place of the usual.303s, as increased protection for 101 Lancasters.

  We also had FIDO [Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation]. Two metal pipes with upward-facing holes, running along either side of the runway, had petrol pumped through them and ignited when visibility was poor. The resulting blaze effectively dispersed low-lying fog. Coming home from a raid at night and looking down through the hole in the clouds was like peering into the flaming mouth of hell. It was sometimes hard to ‘sit the aircraft down’ because of the rising heat – but it was a welcome facility.

  We did two practice cross-countries when we arrived at Ludford Magna, the Lincolnshire home of 101 Squadron. It was the beginning of May. These trips were completed smoothly enough, but I was worried about Tim, our navigator. He appeared nervy, and looked as though he was finding it difficult to concentrate on his calculations while we were flying. I decided to keep this to myself for the present, but to have a private word with him if things did not improve.

  The opportunity never came. An evening later Tim walked into our crew hut and said straight out: ‘I’m sorry boys but I can’t go through with this. I’m having nightmares about going on “ops” and being shot down in flames. I can’t do my work properly, and that’s not fair on all of you.’ Nobody said a word. He put his head in his hands, and that was that.

  LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre) cases were treated very harshly by the RAF. They were stripped of their rank, if they were NCOs, and sent away to carry out the most menial tasks that those who had never placed themselves in danger could devise. Within hours Tim had disappeared from our lives.

  Now we had to wait for navigator No 4. During this enforced idleness we were offered the chance to volunteer for Pathfinders in 8 Group. Lacking a navigator at the time of the offer, we opted to stay with 101.

  It was 2 June before we finally took off on our first ‘op’. Rarely can a crew have been so delayed before flying into action. Our new navigator was a Canadian Flying Officer. We reserved judgement. Our task was to bomb a radar-jamming station at Berneval-le-Grand in France. This, we later learned, was achieved with great accuracy and without loss. Our morale was boosted by the presence of the Squadron Commander, Wing Commander R. I. Alexander, who flew with us in our Lancaster to see how we got on. This was typical of the man.

  After this we were on our own. We flew on two or three daylight raids to attack V1 rocket sites. Our first night operation was to Villeneuve. Here is a quote from my log book:

  Owing to a misunderstanding between pilot and navigator – missed target. Bombs jettisoned. Came back late.

  The following night we were off on a long trip to bomb the marshalling yards at Dijon. This went reasonably well, but a couple of nights later a trip to Vaires turned into a shambles. Owing to a succession of navigational errors we arrived late and alone at the target. On the way back we received a pasting from flak over Paris and flew home on three engines.

  18 July was scheduled to be our first trip to Germany – a synthetic oil plant at Wesseling. But we never got there. On the outward journey Stan’s rear turret became u/s (unserviceable) and Jack decided to abort the sortie. Returning to base over the sea, we were fired on by an allied convoy.

  By this time I was convinced we were leaping from one crisis to the next and had no hope of completing a tour. Our crew had every confidence in Jack as skipper, but he seemed fated to suffer from duff navigators. We had now made our judgement on the latest one. What made matters worse was his arrogance – an unusual trait in a Canadian. They were normally such jolly fellows.

  Jack was promoted to Flying Officer and I became a Flight Sergeant. These were automatic promotions after serving a certain time in the previous rank. At the end of the month we completed a mission to Hamburg. Losses on this raid were high due to the activity of enemy fighters, but we were not attacked. As I was eating my post ‘op’ breakfast, I was handed a telegram, it read: ‘PETE MISSING, HOPE YOU ARE SAFE.’ It was from Pete Bishop’s mother.

  I was stunned. I passed the message to Stan sitting next to me. ‘My mate’, I said, ‘4 Group. Halifaxes’. He studied it, slowly nodding his head, ‘Tough,’ he replied. Then added, ‘Nice sort of Mum’.

  Gentle, thoughtful, patient, quietly cheerful Pete. Gone. But it was unfair to expect members of my crew to grieve over a stranger, so I folded the telegram away and said no more about it. After all, we had twenty-four gaps of our own in the mess that morning.

  Yes, she was a nice Mum. To my undying shame I never replied, I had no idea what to say.

  On 2 August we, who already qualified as one of the ten most experienced crews on the squadron, were briefed to attack a V-rocket launching site at Coquereaux in daylight. The methods adopted were unusual. In a letter to my parents later I said:

  The plan was for us to follow the [2] Mosquitoes. We were in two lines of five behind them. Our Lancaster was last in line to port. When they opened their bomb doors we had to open ours. On seeing the bombs drop from the ‘Mossies’, the first six Lancs were to follow suit. Then, when the last four, which included us, drew level with a smoke puff, the idea was for us to drop our load.

  In practice things worked out rather less neatly. Mosquitoes were tearing around the skies over bomber bases in northern England, looking for their particular group of ‘Heavies’. When the flying cavalcades eventually formed up and set course for France, the fast Mosquitoes were throttled right back, almost falling out of the sky, while the heavily laden Lancasters vibrated on full power, trying to keep up.

  Bomb doors were opened well before the target was reached, and our aircraft, P Peter [PB256], not the best machine on the squadron, was lagging further and further behind. Then it happened. A burst of predicted flak exploded between our port inner engine and the fuselage. The interior of the Lancaster was filled with choking black smoke and we dipped forward into a steep dive. I remember reaching for my chute. It was my 13th operation!

  At that moment we did not know it, but Jack had been wounded. Apart from metal fragments in various parts of his body, half the base cap of an 88mm shell had torn into his groin, missing his genitals by a fraction. After losing precious height, he managed to pull the aircraft out of its dive. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ ve got her. We’ ll go on and bomb.’ From the tone of his voice, we could have been on a cross-country exercise. Jimmy, the bomb-aimer, did not like the idea and said so. Who could blame him? But Jack had made his decision; ‘Behave yourself, Jimmy, we’ ll go on and bomb.’

  And that is what happened. Jack kept the Lancaster straight and steady for the run in, while Jimmy bombed the small target visually. Still on our way in, we could see the rest of the Lancasters heading for home and the Mosquitoes just dwindling dots in the distance. As we too turned for home, the daylight sky seemed a lonely place.

  Jack, who was losing a lot of blood in spite of our emergency bandaging, was determined to hang on till he got us safely back to base, but Ken, the engineer, told him that because of damage to the aircraft we were lea
king fuel, and must put down at the nearest available airfield on England’s south coast. We called up the Squadron Commander who was flying somewhere out ahead:

  ‘P Peter calling. P Peter calling. Pilot wounded. Intend landing Ford.’

  Back snapped the reply: ‘Maintain radio silence.’

  But then you could almost hear the wheels turning inside the CO’s head. It was daylight – radio silence was hardly that important when aircraft could be seen. A wounded pilot? Then who was flying the kite?

  ‘Hello P Peter. Good luck!’

  Jack brought us all the way back, made a perfect landing at Ford and fainted as soon as the wheels stopped rolling. As he was being lowered from the aircraft on a stretcher, his delicate, schoolboy features as pale as death, a group of American flyers standing near, asked:

  ‘Whose that little guy?’

  ‘He’s our Skipper.’

  ‘Yeh? So the co-pilot brought this ship back?’

  ‘No. Our Skipper brought it back. We don’t have co-pilots.’

  Ford was full of Polish, French, American and British flying types who had all put down temporarily for a variety of reasons. The place was cluttered with aggressive-looking Thunderbolts, Mustangs and Typhoons. It seemed ironical that these single-seat fighters should each be carrying more effective fire-power than a squadron of Lancasters.

  As early as mid-1941 Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, DSO, MC, [who was then Air Vice Marshal] was commenting on British bombers:

  Ever since those big “Heavies” appeared on the horizon I have been convinced we must arm them with cannon. If it means a drop in the bomb load – well that’s just too bad; but it’s better to carry 7,000 pounds and get to the target and back than to carry 8,000 pounds and get shot down. The Americans think we are crazy to go on quite happily with .303s in bombers; and I’m sure they are right.

  Making the most of the opportunity, and taking Max Dolette, our stalwart Australian ‘Special’ with me, I nipped on a train and went to call on an uncle and aunt who owned what would now be called a garden centre in the middle of Chichester. They were surprised to see us stroll in, dressed in our flying gear, and made us warmly welcome. It was good to relax in a ‘normal’ atmosphere for a few hours.