Bomber Command

by Martin Bowman

  One of the growing band of ‘star-spangled’ pilots who flew a Lancaster on the night of 23/24 September 1943 when 627 bombers set out for Mannheim, was Pilot Officer ‘Nick’ Knilans. He already knew the odds. Bomber Command was in the midst of an offensive against German cities with four raids on Hannover in September–October. Hannover had been the target for 711 bombers the night before. The Main Force had arrived over the city in good weather but there was a stronger wind than forecast and most of the attack fell up to five miles from the aiming point and at the end as far as nine miles from the AP. It did not help when the backers up aimed their TI greens at reds instead of yellows. Some 2,500 tons of bombs were dropped mainly in suburban areas and open country. At least 20 out of the 26 bombers lost were shot down over the target by both single-engined and twin-engined night fighters that engaged the bomber stream en masse and in Wild Boar fashion over the burning city. Flak too was ‘intense’. There was no reason to think that Mannheim’s defences would be any different.

  On the outward flight Knilans experienced divine intervention:

  The upper sky before me was still somewhat lighted. A figure of a woman, several thousand feet above slowly emerged into my startled view. I recognized this vision as that of a girl I had loved very much. She had died six years before at the age of 19. I had kissed her goodbye one evening and a short while later her father had telephoned me to say that she was dead from pneumonia, unsuspected until it was too late. I had been one of the pall bearers. Now, she had a slight smile on her lips as I flew towards her . . . The vision soon vanished into the darkening sky. I said nothing to the crew then or later. I did not know whether she had appeared to reassure me that she would keep me from harm, or that she was welcoming me into her world of the hereafter. I certainly hoped it wouldn’t be the latter . . . Maybe, I thought, someone was trying to point, for me, a way . . .3

  Knilans would remain at Woodhall Spa for eighteen months of operations on 619 Squadron and in that time 42 Lancasters with 294 men aboard were lost and most of the men killed. In the first six months, no crew was able to complete its first tour. One Canadian pilot’s hair turned from brown to grey before he was shot down. The strain of continuous operations began to affect Knilans’ 22-year-old rear gunner, Sergeant Gordon Hunter ‘Jerry’ Jackson, a Scot from Dumfries. When he received a telegram from his wife, Phoebe, in Scotland that he had a new-born son, Jackson rushed over to see Acting Wing Commander William ‘Jock’ Abercromby and he asked to be taken off flying duties. Abercromby was thirty-three years old and from Inverness-shire. The ‘Wingco’ told Jackson that he was due for leave in a week’s time and that he could see the baby then. In the meantime the rear gunner had to remain on flying status.

  On Friday 24 September Harold Wakefield a flight engineer on Halifaxes on 51 Squadron wrote lyrically and confidently to his parents describing his first two operations, to Hannover and to Mannheim:

  The first trip on Wednesday night to Hannover we weren’t nervous, more excited. The only time we were scared, was when we arrived a little way off the target. When we saw the fires, searchlights and ack-ack, we did feel nervous for a second but it passed over. Johnny said, ‘OK blokes, I’m not stopping here long, it ain’t healthy, let’s get back for the eggs and bacon’. (We have egg and bacon before we go and again as soon as we get back. It’s worth it to get two lots of egg and bacon.) So he turned in, opened up the engines, put the nose down for extra speed and we dived over Hannover at about 250, dropped the goods and were out again, all in about two minutes. One of the lads said over the intercom, ‘Coo, ain’t it pretty.’ Another said, ‘Blimey, it’s just like Blackpool illuminations.’ Some of the things they say are really funny. Last night I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous or excited, honestly. It’s rather boring.

  Two in two nights, it’s not often that happens. We do on average two or three a week. I enjoyed every minute of it and believe me there’s not much of those two cities left. Jerry’s certainly going through it. One minute the place is peaceful and then in about 30 minutes it’s a mass of blazing ruins, on fire from end to end. Flames and smoke thousands of feet high. They’re just swamped. I could still see the fires burning, the glow in the sky, when we were 200 miles away and that’s not exaggerating. Plane after plane, one after the other, just shoving ’em down. Poor Jerry, It’s terrible what they’re going through. But we enjoy doing it just the same. Their defences aren’t bad, but just bewildered. We’re all in and out so quickly that they don’t have time to get going. Their flak doesn’t seem to be able to reach us. But it explodes underneath us and shakes us a bit; it’s quite a pleasant sensation though. They rely chiefly on their night fighters. But they’re not so hot. Nothing we can’t deal with and if we see them coming first they don’t stand an earthly because there are eight belching machine guns waiting for ’em and I’ve seen more than one Jerry fighter going down in flames, bless ’em. Yes I’d much sooner be up where we are than down below at Jerry’s end. He knows what bombing is now alright, believe me. It’s mass slaughter, with Jerry at the receiving end and he won’t be able to stand it much longer. Hannover and Mannheim are heaps of rubble now and I’ll bet those fires will burn for days. I think the Jerry firemen are the hardest worked blokes of the war.

  It’s nice on the way back home, when we get well away from the target and get the coffee out and the chocolates. It makes me hungry. We’ve had no trouble at all yet and I’ve done my job to the satisfaction of everyone. Johnny our pilot is wonderful. He can throw our kite about like an Austin Seven. A searchlight picked us up over Hannover but Johnny was out of that in about two seconds. A fighter got on our tail but Jock had him spotted and told Johnny, a couple of twists and turns and that fighter was soon disposed of, he lost us altogether. Poor old Jock was mad though because he didn’t have a burst at it. There’s no need for guns on our kite because Johnny can lose ’em in two shakes. It’s a piece of cake.

  We’ve got a rest for two or three nights now, to catch up on our sleep. I don’t feel any different. My nerves are better, if anything.

  Well, I thought you’d want to know, because you’ve always liked to know what I’m doing and I thought you’d be getting suspicious if I didn’t tell you soon. But there’s no reason at all for you to worry, because I know I’m going to be OK and I’ve always got my parachute handy . . .

  At Downham Market on 27 September Pilot Officer William Francis Cecil Knight DFC’s crew on 218 Squadron was one of 678 crews detailed to bomb Hannover that night. After briefing they went through their usual rituals and various idiosyncrasies designed to bring them good luck. In the early hours of the morning on return from ops Sergeant Alfred Charles Petre, a Londoner and the WOp/AG on the crew, would always enter the Sergeants Mess and play the same record on the gramophone: Flanagan and Allen singing Underneath the Arches. That night the Pathfinders were misled by strong winds. Just four visual markers identified the aiming point, although some crews made as many as four runs over the city trying to identify it. Only 612 aircraft dropped their bombs and mostly fell on an area five miles north of the city. RAF crews were not yet expert with the new H2S navigational radar, which showed up an expanse of water very well, but the Steinhuder See, a large lake which was used as a way point, had been almost completely covered with boards and nets. Millions of strips of Window were dropped and a diversion raid on Brunswick by 21 Lancasters and six Mosquitoes was successful in drawing off some of the night fighters, but no fewer than 39 bombers were shot down.4 Eighteen of the missing were Halifaxes and three of them were on 10 Squadron. L-Leather piloted by Pilot Officer Harry Cockrem RAAF was attacked by a Focke-Wulf 190 who came up through his own flak and fired at the Halifax from below, while a Junkers Ju 88 flew behind the bomber acting as a decoy. The Halifax began to burn and the calm voice of the Australian pilot said, ‘Prepare to abandon.’ The intercom then cut out as the small fire ate through the electrical wires. Pilot Officer Harold Nash, the navigator, had a feeling of unease in his stomach t
he whole time he was on ops. He liked Dickens and just before putting his flying suit on he was reading Pickwick Papers and he kept reading the same page over and over again:

  Nothing was absorbed, nothing went in. There was a confusion in my mind; a kind of inner alienation from my usual calm. But we were good actors. We all pretended that everything was well. There was a flight lieutenant whom I liked a lot. He’d done about 18 operations but one day he got into the cockpit and he couldn’t fly it off. He was trembling. He was reduced to the ranks and on his documents was written the words ‘LMF.’ He was a fantastic chap and there were several like that. I think that if I hadn’t been shot down – it was I think my 13th operation – I might have gone that way myself eventually.

  I was off the intercom. The Skipper was swaying the aircraft from one side to the other. I didn’t take a great deal of notice because we often did that over Germany to avoid fighters. But suddenly there was this huge rat-a-tat and the whole plane shuddered and shattered. Soon it was on fire. Fear is a strange experience: To begin with the plane was going down slowly and we must have been at about 19,000 or 20,000 feet. We couldn’t get the trapdoor open and I thought ‘God, I’m going to die.’ Now I was a coward and I sat down on the step and I went very calm. It was a kind of peace. I was certain that one member was praying. I gave the pilot his parachute; that was an agreement between us. Suddenly the door opened and I helped a very badly wounded man out. It was the bomb aimer. He said he thought he would die before he hit the ground. The bomb aimer’s chute was all over the nose of the aircraft. Somehow in his haste he pulled the cord and the thing had opened. Then I sprang and counted to 10 slowly like a good boy. I must have been going head-over-heels because every now and again the fire of the plane appeared only to disappear again. I counted 10 and then pulled the cord. My left-boot shot off. I wanted to see clouds but there were trees. I’d almost pulled the cord too late and I landed straightaway in the corner of a field. I hid the parachute under bushes as instructed. As soon as I realised I was safe I began to tremble again. All the fear came back. My first thought was to get to Holland. I knew that in September there was a triangle of stars, the base of which is roughly east/west and I thought of going west. I’d only gone a few yards and there was what I thought was a huge German gun pointing to the sky. I went gingerly around it but it wasn’t a gun. It was a road barrier that was up. I went on for four nights. I hid and slept in the day. I remember one 6 o’clock looking at my watch and thinking about this girl in York who would be waiting for me that day. We weren’t supposed to be on this operation. A crew had gone sick. We were going on a week’s leave the next day but we were called to take their place. I had this date with her but she would realise eventually what had happened when I didn’t turn up.

  It was sheer fear that kept me going. By my final afternoon my socks had worn out I was so tired, even though I tried going to sleep in the day. I can remember being awakened by four boys, German boys from a neighbouring village playing soldiers. One had got a dummy rifle on his shoulder and he saw me lying behind a bush. He didn’t come right across. He just stood there and looked and then went on to catch up his companions. He probably thought that I was a forced worker. There were lots of them in Germany. I was tired, demoralised – I’d got a growth of beard, I was dirty, hungry and thirsty, lying in the early October sunshine. I went to sleep and was awakened by three women sitting talking. I was in a copse overhanging a road. On the other side of the road was a river. I decided to remain in the copse. They were talking for two hours without realising that there was a British airman within a few yards of them. I finally came out of my hiding place and arrived at three cottages. The door opened and a man came out. I said slowly, in bits of schoolboy German, ‘English airman’. He was going to walk past me as I was giving myself up. I pulled back my brown inner suit and he saw the wings and the penny dropped. He took me into the house. It was barely furnished and there was a baby in the corner in a wooden box. He left me with his wife and went off into the village to get the village policeman. He must have realised I was harmless even then. The policeman came and put handcuffs on me. He had a Hitler haircut and moustache.

  Nash and Sergeant P D Craven the flight engineer were the only two crew members to survive.

  As well as the 18 Halifaxes that were lost there were ten missing Stirlings, a Wellington and ten Lancasters. One of the missing Lancasters was flown by Squadron Leader John Herbert Kennard DFC on 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds who was on his second tour. Don Charlwood recalled that ‘besides a DFC he wore two operational adornments – the usual ops cap and a wide moustache, the whistle worn as he alone wore it, on a cord over his shoulder. His eyes were dark and staring as though constant peering into the darkness had left them so. He was, I believe, little more than a boy and it was sometimes said on the squadron that he wore his moustache to disguise his youth.’5

  One of the Stirlings that was missing and had ditched in the sea was probably the victim of an intruder flown by Oberleutnant Rudolf Abrahamczik of 14./KG2 who claimed a Viermot off Cromer. Four of the crew were killed; three survived to be taken prisoner.6 In a separate intruder action Abrahamczik shot down the Lancaster flown by Pilot Officer Desmond Skipper on 101 Squadron in flames near Wickenby after he had been refused permission to land back at Ludford Magna and was told to head for Lindholme. There were no survivors.7 Seven other aircraft crashed or crash-landed at bases on their return, claiming the lives of 16 crew and injuring five.

  At Downham Market no word was received from A-Apple and Pilot Officer Knight’s crew. They had all been killed. In the early hours of 28 September someone else entered the sergeants’ mess and played Underneath The Arches.

  After a break in operations, over 350 aircraft took off on the night of 29/30 September for Bochum, home of the huge Bochumer Verein steelworks, producing 160,000 tons a month. Oboe-assisted Path Finder aircraft marked the target and the bombing was concentrated. Five Halifaxes and four Lancaster IIIs failed to return. Two of the Halifax Vs that were lost were from 434 ‘Bluenose’ Squadron RCAF at Tholthorpe. L-Leather piloted by 2nd Lieutenant J T Clary USAAF was shot down by a night fighter and crashed in Holland. Four of his crew, including fellow American, Sergeant R W Stewart the mid-upper gunner, were taken prisoner. Eighteen-year-old Sergeant Bert Scudder and one other were killed; the American pilot managed to evade capture.

  A total of 178 victories were credited to German night fighters in September, and during October 149 RAF bombers were destroyed by Nachtjagd. On the night of 1/2 October, 243 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes of 1, 5 and 8 Groups set out for Hagen, one of the many industrial towns in the Ruhr. At Binbrook Pilot Officer Scott RAAF on 460 Squadron RAAF hauled his Lancaster off the runway for what was to be his 24th operation over occupied Europe. Over Holland the Australian’s aircraft was hit by anti aircraft fire and the cockpit canopy was shattered, fragments of the Perspex lodged in an eye and, with his face covered in blood and only partial sight, Scott decided to press on to the target and dropped his bombs on the aiming point. The raid was a complete success achieved on a totally cloud-covered target of small size. Two of the town’s four industrial areas were severely hit and a third suffered lesser damage. An important factory, which manufactured accumulator batteries for U-boats, was among the 46 industrial factories that were destroyed and 166 damaged. Battery output to the Untersee Boots was slowed down considerably. Thirty thousand people were bombed out as over 3,400 fires, of which 100 were ‘large’, ravaged the town. One Lancaster failed to return and a second was lost when it crashed on return in the Bristol Channel with the loss of all seven crew.

  Next day was filled with considerable tension on the Lancaster stations of 1, 5 and 8 Groups in the Lincolnshire and East Anglian flat lands. Sir Arthur Harris was in the midst of a campaign of area bombing German cities at night using Lancasters and Halifaxes, while B-24 Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses of the US 8th and 12th Air Forces stoked the fires by day. At a station in Lincolnshire,
D W Pye, a WOp/AG on Lancaster Q-Queenie – ‘a grand job, tuned up to perfection’ wrote:

  We were on the ‘programme’ for that night’s operation [2/3 October] and the usual rumours were going the rounds in the mess as to where they were going. We knew that we had on board our Lancaster a 2,200 gallon petrol load and so the trip must be in the region of a ten-hour ‘Op’ – quite a long one. We reported to the Briefing Room at 17.00 hours. This was it. Now we would know the worst. We learned that our target was Munich, a tough one, with about eleven hundred ack-ack guns, 300 searchlights and on top of that a good chance of heavy night fighter defence on the way in and out. We [around 290 Lancasters and two B-17s] were being routed-in over France, across the Alps skirting the Swiss border and down south; a nasty way if one got engine trouble and had to climb the 16,000 feet to clear such peaks as Mont Blanc.

  Once in the aircraft we did our last pre-flight checks. All was OK so we climbed out again for a last natter, a cup of tea, a smoke and a joke or two with our ground crew. The Commanding Officer came up in his jeep, asked if all was well and wished us all the best. Then he was on to the next dispersal point and crew. A hard job the CO had; he knew for sure that a number of the boys he was talking to would not come back and tomorrow he would have the task of writing to their mothers, wives and sweethearts. The Skipper checked the time and, seeing that we were the first off, we switched on, revved up and taxied out on to the runway. The ‘green’ came from the Airfield Controller and we were off, tearing down the runway and up into the night, circling, climbing and eventually setting course on the first leg of our route to Munich.