Bomber Command

by Martin Bowman

  Alan Larden and the rest of the crew on O-Oboe meanwhile, headed for Turin:

  Being the first time for us on an Italian target all had a busy afternoon preparing new data and now, all these dots in the sky swung at the same instant and joined the stream of Halis coming down from the North. Up where we were it was still daylight and our armada of some 600-odd ships were visible right to the South Coast. The clouds below looked like a verminous white blanket with those black dots crawling on the surface. The French coast at Caen was crossed at 10,000 feet and we continued on enjoying a pleasant ride in brilliant August moonlight, the gunners with their ‘dark side’ to worry about and myself cursing the multitudinous rivers of rolling France and the equally numerous pieces of topographical map from which I was supposed to find out which was which. As Bill’s Gee was not too bad, I didn’t care much and kept a weather eye peeled for Ju 88s. It seemed no time till the fields and farms changed to the rugged parts of Le Creusot and then the Alps were upon us. We tried getting old Oboe up to 18,000 feet but had to settle for about 15,000 as the starboard inner’s heat gauge went practically off the clock. Pilot Art, with me in the co-pilot’s seat, were all eyes. Mitch had his head over my shoulder and the intercom was full of the excited comments of all at the grandeur or the Alps in the moonlight and then Lake Constance and the bright lights of Geneva and finally tremendous, towering, castle-like Mont Blanc with its crown of clouds and snow.

  Boy’, said Art. ‘Would I like to climb that.’

  Suddenly before us, there was the target. The mountains had stopped like the edge of the table and up front a few miles, a black smudge in the moonlight was Turin. Four or five waving searchlights, the odd gun flash on the ground and its subsequent deadly twinkle in the puffy sky above. It didn’t take me long to slither down to the bombsight and get cracking nor for Mitch to climb into my seat and get his fingers on the bomb bay door releases. Amidst these pleasant thoughts of ‘Ha piece of cake’ and ‘Ha lovely prang’ came Rich’s voice over the intercom.

  ‘Watch the bloke up front, Art.’

  ‘OK Rich. Christ, he’s firing at us. Fire back at him, Rich.’

  ‘I can’t; the wing tip is in the way.’24

  All this chatter came to me on my knees over the bombsight head. All thought passed from my mind. It was a complete blank and as I turned my head to starboard half a dozen little finger holes were punched in the fuselage, two feet from my face, in seemingly deliberate procession. I was awakened from my shock by Mitch’s horror-filled voice, sounding as if he had a mouthful of his stomach, gasping out.

  ‘My God, fellows, look at Art. Oh, poor Art. Give me a hand, Alan.’

  As I emerged from the nose, in front of me Bill lay crumpled on the floor of the rear of the nav station, his pencil dividers and instruments scattered over his torn and bloodied Mercators. His face was up, his chewing gum still between his lips and his eyes were open. He had been standing to confirm a Gee fix for the course out of the target area. One of the bullets which had passed under Mitchem’s seat hit the armpit of his raised right arm and into his heart; he did not live long enough to close his eyes. Jimmy reported ‘Bill’s had it’. As I swung up into the cockpit I could see Art hunched to the port side, his face covered with blood and a gaping wound, his right arm dangling limp and useless. The instrument panel was a mess of broken, bloodstained glass, as was the pilot’s side of the windscreen. Mitch was really fighting the controls and every couple of seconds throwing agonised glances in Art’s direction. I could see we were right down amongst the mountain peaks and for some unknown reason, Mitch just slid out of the seat and I into it. I guess it was our lengthy training and respect for each other’s jobs, coupled with the fact that our engines weren’t in the healthiest shape that prompted the involuntary action. While I kept us in the air, flying down the valleys, picking the lowest peaks to scrape over and trying to keep track of our general direction on the compass, Mitch gathered the rest of the crew and had two of them give Art morphine injections and bundle him up amidships between the main spar (but not until after he had tried to tell us to head for England, finally scratching the message shakily in the back of Bill’s log with his left hand). After I gave him the old ‘OK’ sign and pointed over the mountains in the general direction of north-west he submitted to the rough first aid of Mac and Jimmy. As the starboard inner engine was again dangerously warm, I decided we just couldn’t make it over the higher mountains to the West. We couldn’t jettison and the thought of bailing out in those cold, snowy, wind-driven peaks invited as much danger as sticking with the ship. I took the only alternative and headed over the lower mountains towards Austria. As more air got between us and the ground I decided to try and get to the nearest British occupied part, which was Sicily. Accordingly, from heading eastward we turned through south gradually to head westward. The rest of the crew as well as me had had plenty of the mountains and the gentler hills of Italy, compared with the Alps, helped them to agree on our destination.

  Considerable time had elapsed by the time we crossed the Italian coast at Spezia. After Mitch had checked his engines and fuel he came and took over again for a while, whilst I induced the crew not to be backward about moving Bill’s body from the gangway and told the gunners to check the dinghies and parachutes for damage and get them in readiness. To manage the aircraft was considerable work for we had no trimming tabs (the cables had been shot away and were dangling from the roof). With the one engine cut back, one’s left leg felt as if it was going to be shoved into one’s stomach. The rear gunner was given a post facing the engineer’s panel and was to yell when the first warning light came in the fuel indicators. Mitch and I were in the pilot and co-pilot’s seats respectively (we had let the mid-upper gunner try his hand at flying but now that we were clear of the most dangerous long-range fighter areas, we thought we could dispense with his ‘evasive tactics’ – he sure chased the needle of the automatic horizon up and down) when the rear gunner’s first shout came over the phones. As there was a five minute warning on the indicators Mitch’s reaction wasn’t immediate but poor Mac’s was. Mitch gave me instructions on how to get the last drop out of the tanks. When one engine was heard to cough and start to gulp for lack of fuel I would cut the throttle right off and then he would switch on another tank and I would shove the throttle right ahead to the gate and gradually throttle back ‘till the engines sounded synchronised (two of our rev counters were u/s) and we would proceed on our merry way ‘till the next little red light startled us all over again.

  About this time Jimmy Guy informed us that Group had just faded out on the wireless. They had received our message all right but we couldn’t receive them strongly enough to understand their instructions. The sky was clear now and the moon made that romantic, silvery path on the dappled waters of the Mediterranean. However, we failed to see much beauty in the scenery and embarked on another ‘round table conference’ about how we would behave when we got to Sicily. To be, or not to be, land on the earth or the seas; wheels up or down; land or bail out. The discussion was quite lively, sensible and at times with a range of humour and all the time little Jimmy kept his distress signals pounding out. I wondered, about now, why I was perspiring so much and put my hand in my hip pocket for a handkerchief and then in my side pocket. I couldn’t find a hanky but my hand did feel sticky. When I looked, it was covered in blood and my right leg was pretty well soaked, I showed it to Mitch and he looked me over and pointed to my hip pocket and removed my escape kit, which had been ripped by a couple of bullets. I wasn’t suffering and was quite busy so I paid no attention.

  Mitch showed me his right flying boot, which had been cut in two at the ankle by three bullets. We had nearly four hours of this highly precarious state of existence and of late had been getting loop bearings to home from Jimmy. Finally, on the horizon, a couple of searchlights came in view, joined by a third, occasionally, to form an aerodrome’s tripod. Now the excitement ran high. Friend or foe? We sure didn’t know but we did
want to change our mode of living. I homed right over the beams and let Jimmy get a reciprocal and a couple of miles out to sea turned around and came back over the ’drome. All the time, I had been trying to get in touch by R/T for instructions but no joy. The first turn around was a right hand one as there were mountains back of the field it was kind of steep for such a novice. The lights below were on and our discussion at the moment was if Art would find a crash landing harder to take than if we dropped him by a static cord. Fate stepped in again, though. Art’s morphine had worn off as we approached the aerodrome and in his exuberance, McCabe had imparted the good news to Art that we were safe. Arthur, his valiant spirit supporting his death-cheated body, motioned to occupy the pilot’s seat. His face, practically shot in two, was black with caked blood and his right forearm was held on by a few pieces of tendon. [At that time it was not known that a bullet had penetrated his chest. His lower face was a gaping hole where his jaw had been and of course he could not speak.] Who could deny such an indomitable spirit?

  As Mitch held the co-pilot’s controls I slid out of the seat to help Art into it. I then took over the co-pilot’s position as Mitch resumed his watch at the engineer’s panel. Art had only the one hand to handle the control column and only by shaking his head could he communicate. Three times, with the crew in crash positions, did he make a let-down to approach land. Twice he shook his head ‘No’ and had me advance the throttles and roar round again. On the third approach Mitch, highly perturbed, said that he was bailing out if we attempted another circuit as we did not have enough petrol to complete it. Art began to pull back on the controls to go round again. I yelled to go down, that there wasn’t enough fuel for another half circuit but he shook his head in the negative and continued to pull back. Quicker than it takes to tell I gave him a thump on the chest to make him let go of the control column and he collapsed completely when I did so. Mitch helped ease him out of the seat and I resumed it again. I’ll never erase the look on his face from my memory. By the time I got hold of the controls we were at the point of stalling and only a few hundred feet off the ground. As we were falling off the left wingtip I shoved the controls hard forward and held on as we gained speed towards the desert sands. Just lucky, I guess because as I pulled back the nose came up and we tobogganed in for a wheelsup landing. The aircraft was full of sand dust and cries of joy and congratulations from the two Jimmies and Mac, who had been lying down in their crash positions not knowing of the drama up front for about 15 tense minutes. Needless to say no time was wasted in vacating the premises. Aside from bent propeller tips no damage was visible.

  A small Bedford truck full of uniformed men had been bouncing over the sand to meet us and it was with some relief that we noted the shape of the helmets, which confirmed our hopes that we had landed in ‘occupied territory’. As the airmen ran towards us, who should I see in the forefront but Sergeant Lapointe who was on my course at Air Observers course at Quebec city. I was quite impressed by the coincidence of this. On reflection I think Art’s thinking was impaired by the awful pain he must have been in for he just seemed to ignore the fact that the fuel was not there to keep flying. A subsequent check showed all cross-balancing cocks had been opened and 15 gallons had drained to the starboard wing tip tank. I’m not an expert but I hardly think Mitch was in error in his threat to bail out. Maybe Art was hoping that the faulty undercarriage would correct itself in another circuit – no one knows. We certainly were the object of God’s providence though; for if we had landed on the runway we would have been wrapped up like sardines in a can for we found out from the CO that the runway was made of PSP (pierced steel planking). He was quite grateful in fact for his airfield would have been out of use for some days. It was 06.00 hours on Friday the 13th and we had landed at Bone, North Africa, after six hours of hopeful wandering about the sky.

  Malcolm Mitcham adds:

  We were of course exhilarated at our close escape. Rich helped relieve the tensions in his rich Yorkshire accent: ‘Eeh, we’ve had worse rides on a double-decker bus.’

  Art was quickly rushed to the hospital at the base where they had to operate to remove a bullet from his right chest cavity. Likely it was the one which shattered his elbow. We were all checked through by the MO. Mitch and I were the only ones who had been touched and we were sure lucky. Two chips of aluminium were taken from the tip of my nose. A bullet had creased the front of my collarbone and they removed two bullets from my right buttock. An airman later in the day presented me with the safety buckle from my Sutton harness. Two bullets had made direct hits upon it and jammed it in the release position. If I had bailed out I would have fallen completely out of my parachute harness as soon as the ‘chute opened. All morning we silently prayed for good news about Art and, at first, he seemed to be holding his own and we were all so thankful. However, I think it was at early evening, word came that he had succumbed. His valiant heart could stand no more and had finally stopped.

  Whilst inspecting Arthur Aaron’s Stirling Sergeant Doug Smith, on a detachment from 155 MU serving at Bone recovered five or six bullets from the cooling fins of the starboard inner engine and these, on checking over, appeared to be British bullets. This led him to immediately think that the Stirling had not been shot up by an enemy fighter. These bullets were handed over to the Armaments Officer of the station and nothing more was heard of the matter for 40 years. Two days after their crash landing, inspection of the damage to Oboe disclosed that a 1,000lb special delay bomb had failed to jettison with the others and remained in its cradle in the bomb bay. If the bomb had torn away from its cradle during the belly landing and exploded no would have known any details of Oboe’s last flight, giving rise to the award of the highest decoration for valour.25

  On 3 November 1943 the London Gazette announced that Acting Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron DFM had been awarded a posthumous VC for action on 13 August 1943. The citation said, ‘Had he been content, when grievously wounded, to lie still and conserve his failing strength, he would probably have recovered but he saw it as his duty to exert himself to the utmost, if necessary with his last breath, to ensure that his aircraft and crew did not fall into enemy hands. In appalling conditions he showed the greatest qualities of courage, determination and leadership and, though wounded and dying, he set an example of devotion to duty which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed.’ Flight Sergeant Allan W Larden received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal and the DFM was awarded to Sergeants Malcolm Mitchem and ‘Jimmie’ Guy.

  Turin was hit by 112 Stirlings, 34 Halifaxes and six Lancasters and two Stirlings failed to return.

  On 14/15 August one Lancaster was shot down on the raid on Milan and seven were lost on the raid on the same city the night following, mostly to German fighters, which were waiting for the bombers’ return over France. Two Lancasters on 467 Squadron at Bottesford were shot down near Chartres. Y-Yorker was flown by Wing Commander Cosme Gomm DSO DFC the CO, who was killed. The only member of his crew to survive was Sergeant James Lee, the 20-year-old flight engineer and youngest on the crew. His parachute had been damaged but luckily he landed on a hayrick. He suffered burns and spent the rest of the war in captivity. F-Freddie flown by Flight Lieutenant Jack Sullivan was attacked from below by a night fighter ‘that came from nowhere’. A magnesium flare was hit and the back of the Lancaster erupted into an inferno. Only Sergeant Ken Harvey the flight engineer, who was virtually blinded by the glare and Flying Officer T H F Entract, the bomb aimer, got out. An eighth Lancaster crashed on return to Scampton, killing five and injuring two on the crew.

  On 16/17 August 154 aircraft of 3 and 8 Groups set off for the Fiat works in Turin once more. At Gransden Lodge Flight Lieutenant ‘Tony’ Weber on 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron RCAF was detailed to act as primary Pathfinder:26

  It was to be a long trip – eight hours of flying with no second pilot – in my faithful old Lancaster LQ-X, which my ground crew had modified with great enthusiasm in several ways to suit my type of flying.
A downward viewing hole had been cut aft of the bomb bay, a modification subsequently adopted by the whole of 405 Squadron. The mid-upper turret had been removed in order to reduce drag. (I was at that time using my mid upper gunner to man the lower viewing hole.) The Perspex panels from the rear turret had been removed – bit draughty but it considerably improved visibility. Many hours had been spent at the factory, hand polishing this Perspex but my gunner just had to see the fighter, which could be homing in on us, before the fighter saw us. Then I had all the tracer bullets removed from the ammo belts. They only showed the enemy how inadequate the range of our 0.303 inch guns was compared to their cannons.

  We took-off from Gransden Lodge as the sun was setting, with a full moon rising. Our route took us directly over the City of London, something never risked before. It must have been a grand sight for the battered Londoners, as there were more than 300 of us that night. The display was intended as a morale booster for those on the ground who had suffered so much in the Blitz. London had received its first hammering from the Luftwaffe on 7 September 1940. We crossed the English coast at Beachy Head and the French coast at Dieppe. Twenty miles east of Paris we set course directly for the Alps, which we crossed near Albertville at 15,000 feet, then on to Lac du Bourget which was clearly visible in the moonlight. This was the point where we were to make a time and direction run into the target. This technique was used in order to avoid being confused by dummy targets at which, the Germans were past masters. On this leg we were dead on time and somewhat surprised to find that Turin was a blaze of activity. Searchlights were scanning the skies and guns were firing away at least five minutes before we were due to be on target. So who was the fool who had got to the target too early? We questioned our timing but there were over four minutes to go to zero hour. We found out later that this was just a show of force to frighten us off. No one had got there ahead of us. It was so different from targets in Germany, which always lay dark and menacing until the first marker went down, then all hell broke loose.