Bomber Command

by Martin Bowman

  We took off one by one in a flurry of pounding rain and found ourselves immediately in a huge cu-nim cloud. The airspeed indicator fluctuated by 30 mph or more and the rate of climb indicator wobbled crazily up and down. The aircraft was tossed and buffeted by the swirling currents of air and we could only climb very slowly as we edged painfully higher. Fifty hard-won feet would be lost in an instant as we hit a powerful down draught and then just as suddenly we would gain fifty feet like a fast moving lift, as we were carried upwards by a stream of rising air.

  With great difficulty Burr forced his Lancaster to 16,000 feet and then set course over the North Sea feeling glad that:

  . . . my wrists and arms were strong, for it was only with the utmost difficulty that this aircraft could be kept on an even keel. At 17,000 feet the Lancaster was still in heavy cloud and would climb no higher. Presently lightning began to play around it and ‘all the metal parts of the aircraft shone with the blue spikes of St. Elmo’s fire . . . About a quarter of a mile to port was another aircraft flying on a parallel course . . . It seemed to be a mass of flame and I realised that it, too, must be covered with St. Elmo’s fire . . . I stared at this flying beacon and suddenly, as I watched a streak of lightning split the heavens. There was a huge flash and burning fragments broke away. What remained of the aircraft plunged to earth.

  Thirty aircraft failed to return as a result of enemy action (a Stirling collided with a Dornier Do 217 and all were killed) and icing (one crew abandoning their Halifax over Sweden), taking total losses on the four raids to 79. Three more aircraft including Halifax O-Oboe flown by Flying Officer J G Jenkins on 10 Squadron, crashed on their return. Before reaching the target O-Oboe was attacked by a Ju 88 and Jenkins was compelled to jettison his bombs and take evasive action. The rear gunner eventually shot the night fighter down in flames but not before both of Oboe’s elevators had been shot away, the wings and fuel tanks damaged and the port tyre punctured. Incredibly, none of the crew was injured and Jenkins, despite the difficulty of controlling the aircraft, returned to base at Melbourne and made a safe landing. ‘Bring-em-back-alive Jenkins’ as he became known, brought N-Nuts home from Hannover a month later when on 22/23 September an attacking night fighter shot away his windscreen and extensively damaged both sides of the fuselage and the hydraulic system. The bombs refused to jettison and so Jenkins headed the Halifax out over the North Sea and all the crew bailed out safely near Patrington, Yorkshire.

  At Hamburg, dawn on 3 August broke upon a city sunk ‘in a great silence’ after the ‘howling and raging of the fire storms’ and bathed in the unreal light of rays filtered through a canopy of smoke. Everywhere lay dust, soot and ashes . . . The streets were covered with hundreds of bodies. ‘No worthwhile concentration over the target’ had been achieved. (Only scattered bombing took place and 1,426 tons struck the city). But then it was hardly necessary. More than 6,000 acres of Hamburg smouldered in ruins. Over four nights, 3,095 bombers were dispatched, 2,500 attacked and 8,621 tons of bombs were dropped, 4,309 tons of them being incendiary bombs. In these raids, including the small daylight American attacks, it was computed by the Police President that 40,385 dwelling-houses and 275,000 flats, representing 61 per cent of the living accommodation of the city, had been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. Some 580 industrial and armament establishments were in a similar condition and so were 2,632 shops, 76 public offices, 24 hospitals, 277 schools, 58 churches, 83 banks, 12 bridges and one menagerie, the famous Hagenbeck Zoo, which was wiped out in the first raid. Half the city had been totally devastated. The total population had been reduced by about 30 per cent and the working population by 25 per cent. The number of persons known to have lost their lives was 41,800; the injured, many of whom died, numbered 37,439. To these must be added some thousands more missing.

  ACM Sir Arthur Harris said ‘In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a comparatively humane method. For one thing, it saved the flower of the youth of this country and of our allies from being mown down by the military in the field, as it was in Flanders in the war of 1914–1918.’ Gauleiter Kaufmann, in his first report to Josef Goebbels spoke of a catastrophe, the extent of which simply staggers the imagination. He spoke of about 800,000 homeless people wandering up and down the streets not knowing what to do.’ Goebbels wrote ‘A city of a million inhabitants has been destroyed in a manner unparalleled in history. We are faced with problems that are almost impossible of solution. Food must be found for this population of a million. Shelter must be secured. The people must be evacuated as far as possible. They must be given clothing.’ Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch State Secretary of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM or Reich Air Ministry), went further. ‘It’s much blacker than [Albert] Speer [the German Armaments Minister] paints it. If we get just five or six more attacks like these on Hamburg, the German people will just lay down their tools, however great their willpower . . .’ (In his speech to a conference of Gauleiters on 6 October Milch said that in Hamburg particularly the production of variable pitch propellers had suffered very severely because of the loss to these factories of 3,000 skilled workers who were still missing.) Up to the time of these attacks, the production of 500-ton U-boats had been between eight and nine a month. After, it fell to between two and three, partly owing to the direct damage inflicted on the yards and workshops and partly because of absenteeism. Speer admitted that ‘Hamburg put the fear of God in me – Gauleiter Kaufmann teletyped Hitler repeatedly, begging him to visit the stricken city. When these pleas proved fruitless, he asked Hitler at least to receive a delegation of some of the more heroic rescue crews. But Hitler refused even that.’14

  Paralyzed by Window, Nachtjagd and the Flakwaffe were unable to offer any significant resistance. Adolph Galland added:

  A wave of terror radiated from the suffering city and spread throughout Germany. Appalling details of the great fires were recounted and their glow could be seen for days from a distance of 120 miles. A stream of haggard, terrified refugees flowed into the neighbouring provinces. In every large town people said: ‘What happened to Hamburg yesterday can happen to us tomorrow.’ Berlin was evacuated with signs of panic. In spite of the strictest reticence in the official communiqués, the Terror of Hamburg spread rapidly to the remotest villages of the Reich. Psychologically the war at that moment had perhaps reached its most critical point. Stalingrad had been worse but Hamburg was not hundreds of miles away on the Volga but on the Elbe, right in the heart of Germany. After Hamburg in the wide circle of the political and military command could be heard the words: ‘The war is lost.’

  The Bomber Command ORS, which analysed the Hamburg raids said:

  The very low casualties incurred on the first two raids were largely due to the temporary disorganisation of the German fighter defences by a new countermeasure which precluded the vectoring of controlled night fighters. The final attack was ruined by unexpected deterioration of weather conditions over the target. Eighty-seven aircraft is a high price in itself but in comparison with the loss suffered by Germany in the almost complete annihilation of her second city, it can only be regarded as minute. The ‘Hafen’ with its imposing array of shipbuilding yards, docks, warehouses and administrative buildings was the basis of Hamburg’s contribution to German economic life . . . The destruction of Hamburg by bombing was thus far the stiffest task yet undertaken in air warfare. It was not until 1 August that smoke from the conflagrations cleared sufficiently to make reconnaissance possible. The heavily damaged areas covered 6,200 acres out of the 8,380 acres which comprise Hamburg’s closely built-up residential area. All parts of the city and dock were shattered – all four main shipbuilding yards were hit, five floating docks were sunk or badly damaged, 150 industrial plants were destroyed or badly damaged, plus massive disruption of communications and power.

  On average, British losses during the Hamburg raids were no more than 2.8 per cent, whereas in the previous 12 months, losses had risen from 3.7 to 4.3 per cent. Window neutralize
d the Würzburg GCI and GL radars and short range AI and completely destroyed the basis of GCI interception. Controlled anti-aircraft fire was almost completely disrupted at night and only fixed box barrages remained possible. The new British tactics also combined the use of PFF, the massed bomber stream and new target finding equipment (H2S). This combination resulted in total chaos to the German night fighter defence system, which was unable to obtain a true picture of the air situation or control the night fighters in the air. Until they received better equipment, the only method German fighter pilots could use to overcome the crisis caused by Window was the Wilde Sau tactic.15

  On the night of Friday 30/31 July nine of 105 and 109 Squadron’s Mosquitoes each carrying four red TIs, marked Remscheid, a centre of the German machine-tool industry on the southern edge of the Ruhr, which was the target for over 270 aircraft. This was the first raid on the town. Weather over the target was clear and the raid was well concentrated on a town with a population of 107,000 that manufactured machine precision tools from high-grade steel. The largest factory, Alexanderwerk AG, employed nearly 3,000 workers and covered 75 acres. It produced special machinery for the chemical industry, motor components and small arms. There were 25 smaller factories in the town, as well as railway workshops that specialised in the repair of goods wagons. The Oboe ground-marking and the bombing by the comparatively small Main Force were exceptionally accurate and 83 per cent of the town was destroyed. Remscheid was still blazing on Saturday at midday with smoke to a height of 14,000 feet over the town. This brought the Battle of the Ruhr to an end after 18,506 sorties in which 57,034 tons of bombs had been dropped for a loss of 1,038 aircraft.16

  In the spring of 1943 Sergeant James W Boynton was a Lancaster rear gunner on 156 Squadron and flew a Path Finder tour of ops with Flight Lieutenant R E Young and crew at RAF Warboys near Huntingdon. Boynton recalls:

  For ten of those operations during the battle of the Ruhr and Hamburg we flew N for Nan. In early August the Squadron started to receive aircraft fitted with the new blind bombing equipment H2S and so Nan was transferred to 61 Squadron after surviving 25 hazardous Path Finder operations. Little did we know that she was a lucky aircraft and would go on to complete a further 105 ops over the following year. 17

  At Warboys it was usually about 11 o’clock in the morning that word got around the station that ops were on for the following night. Aircrew looked for their names on the Ops Battle Order that was posted in the Squadron office. Some names appeared on the list despite having been on ops the previous night and not landing back at base until six or seven that morning. These crews had to be awakened by the billet orderlies at mid-day in order for them to prepare for the coming operation. After a mid-day lunch our crew would meet in the aircrew locker room, draw our chutes and then board the crew bus which took us out to our aircraft dispersal. Once the ground crew had completed the aircraft’s daily inspections and dealt with any problems reported from the previous operation, we took her up on a night flying test (NFT). This usually lasted about an hour and consisted of each crew member checking over all his operational equipment and making sure everything was working correctly. The Skipper would fly out over the north Norfolk coast to the coastal inlet called the Wash. After checking the area for shipping, we would drop a flame float target into the sea and fire off a few hundred rounds to make sure the eight Browning .303 machine guns were working properly. It also provided good gunnery practice.

  After returning to base and taxiing the aircraft to its dispersal, the petrol bowser would arrive and the ground crew would begin to fill the aircraft’s petrol tanks and the armourers set about loading the correct TIs and bomb load aboard the aircraft for the coming operation. If we had had a rough week doing a few ops on the trot, the Medical Officer (MO) would issue us with Wakey-Wakey pills to keep us awake and alert during the long flight. However, we never took them until the very last moment because sometimes the op was scrubbed just before take-off due to dodgy weather en-route, which meant another sleepless night if we had taken a pill too early.

  During the early months of 1943 operational briefings were usually held at 16.00 hours. The actual take-off times depended upon the distance to the target, weather and the rise and setting of the moon. After specialist briefings all the aircrews came together in the Squadron briefing room. At the far end of the room a large map of Western Europe displayed, with thick red tapes, the route to and from the target. When everyone was settled, the station commander arrived and various officers gave us the gen on the night’s operation. The Flying Control officer gave us times of take-off in aircraft order. Next the Intelligence officer described the route out and home, the time to open the attack with our marker flares and where they were to be placed in the target area. Sometimes we would be briefed to drop markers en-route to keep the main force on the correct path away from heavy flak. Bitter experience had shown that anyone wandering off track 15 or 20 miles would almost certainly become a sitting duck for both fighters and flak. The Squadron Commander then briefed us on where the most flak and fighters were likely to be encountered. Lastly, the Met man would give us his weather forecast en route, over the target and for our return in the early hours. Unfortunately he usually got it wrong somewhere along the way, resulting in some of the experienced crews taking the Mickey out of him by shouting out, ‘Was your seaweed wet or dry today?’ Such banter helped to relieve the tension. All the pilots and navigators would set their watches on the time check; the station commander would wish us luck and the briefing was over.

  This was followed by a pre-op meal and then we would all try and relax until about an hour and half before take-off when the whole crew would meet up again in the locker room. There we collected all our flying gear including our chutes, Mae West, helmets, flying boots, silk under gloves and gauntlets. In addition, because of the intense cold experienced in Lancaster rear turrets, gunners were issued with special electrically heated clothing, which included an overall, gloves and slippers that fitted inside flying boots. All of which offered some welcome comfort and protection against the extremely low temperatures encountered above 10,000 feet. However, on hot summer nights I never got fully dressed in my flying gear until the aircraft had climbed to a cooler altitude. If I had dressed in my full flying kit on the ground my perspiration would have frozen on me once airborne. After kitting-out we went by crew bus out to the aircraft which was by then bombed up and ready to go.

  On take-off there was always a small crowd of officers, WAAFs and airmen to wave us off. While on the take-off run I always turned the rear turret facing the port beam with the turret back doors open just in case of a ground loop crash. In many such accidents the rear gunner often came off the best as the aircraft’s main beam area took most of the impact. At around 6,000 feet I left the turret, got fully dressed and then climbed back in to settle down to concentrate on the task ahead. Later, when I started to feel cold I’d plug my electrically heated suit into the aircraft’s power supply. We had climbed to our operational height of 20,000 feet by the time we reached the coast and, sometimes on a clear starlit night, I would watch the Norfolk shore line rapidly fade into the distance and wondered if we would ever see it again.

  Over the North Sea our Skipper always flew straight and level until the enemy coast was sighted by the bomb aimer. After that it was weaving all the way to the target. In our opinion to fly straight and level over enemy territory was just plain suicide for a slow heavily laden bomber. At our first crew meeting the Skipper said he believed the only way to survive a tour of forty Path Finder operations was to have a well disciplined and highly trained crew and a big slice of all the luck going. After completing a few operations we realised that we would encounter more heavy flak areas the deeper we penetrated German air space. So the procedure we adopted to counter the German predicted flak batteries, was to fly in an irregular pattern by descending 500–600 feet and then climbing slowly back and also weaving from left to right of the set course. The whole crew, apart from
the navigator, were on fighter and friendly aircraft collision watch. The gun turrets on our aircraft never stopped moving from side to side for the duration of the operation. This constant movement and scanning the sky made our aircraft a hard target for both German night fighters and ground defences. Once over enemy territory many aircraft would be seen going down in flames on the way to the target. Those I actually saw crash on the ground I reported to the navigator giving him their approximate position, he then plotted them on his chart. On some deep penetration operations over Germany, I saw a dozen or more aircraft go down behind us and many more burning on the ground.

  One of the most hated anti-bomber defences employed by the Germans was parachute flares dropped by high flying Ju 88 night fighters. These flares would burst just below the bomber stream and illuminate the whole area thus presenting many bombers as silhouetted targets for the night fighters waiting above. These flares burned so brightly that it was like driving down a well lit road at night and temporarily blinded anyone who was close by. In such circumstances there was nothing the Skipper could do apart from weave more violently than usual and try to fly out of range. The same applied when we got ourselves coned in searchlights. Most large city targets such as Berlin had a radar controlled master beam, which was blue in colour. If it locked onto an aircraft, another ten to fifteen searchlight beams quickly latched onto the victim who became a sitting duck for the heavy flak batteries. Experienced bomber crews found the only way to escape the master beam was to dive away from the expected flak barrage coming up from below. The last 20 miles to the target had to be flown straight and level in order to make sure target indicators and bombs were placed accurately on the target aiming point. This was a really dodgy period and we were lucky if we were not hit by something or other. Many aircraft were lost at this point, some in collisions and others hit by bombs from above. Stirling and Halifax bombers could only reach about 17,000 feet so they got the lot, the small flak: as well as the heavy, plus more attention from the night fighters.