Bomber Command

by Martin Bowman

  Four of the missing Main Force Lancasters were on 115 Squadron at Witchford, which had dispatched 18 aircraft. K-King flown by Flight Sergeant Jim Newman was hit by flak over Frankfurt before the crew got to Berlin and by the time they reached the ‘Big City’ it was close to midnight. They were attacked by a Ju 88 shortly after dropping their bomb load. Cannon and heavy machine-gun fire set the starboard wing and fuselage on fire and Sergeant Nicholas S Alkemade’s rear gun turret received a direct hit from a cannon shell, blowing out all the Perspex and setting part of the hydraulic gear system on fire. It was the 21-year-old rear gunner’s 13th operation. Alkemade had joined the RAF in 1940 and served in Air Sea Rescue launches before transferring to Bomber Command. Alkemade returned fire at the Ju 88 and saw its port engine burst into fire and the aircraft dive away. K-King was set on fire and was losing height rapidly and Newman gave the order for the crew to bail out. Alkemade, however, was not wearing his parachute. It was still stashed away in the fuselage, apparently ready for an emergency. Alkemade went to fetch it but the wall of flame between the turret and the rest of the aircraft made it impossible. By now as the smoke filled the gun turret and the flames reached his gas mask his clothes were already alight and he had first-, second- and third-degree burns on his face and hands and burns on his legs. He decided that the prospect of dying by fire was simply too horrible. So, without a parachute he threw himself out into the night sky, 18,000 feet above the ground. Blissfully, he passed out and then he came to three hours later on the ground. His fall had been broken by pine trees in the Arnsbergerwald near Schmallenberg and deep snow cover and his 120-mph terminal velocity had been safely cushioned by foliage and branches. He had a twisted right knee, a deep splinter wound in his thigh, a strained back and slight concussion but he was still alive! Unable to move, Alkemade blew his whistle to get attention. He was found by local members of the Volksturm. No-one believed his story that he was an airman who had landed without a parachute and Alkemade was placed in solitary confinement on suspicion of being a spy. Eventually the harness of his parachute was examined. Rivets which held his harness snap hooks flat to his chest and would break once the ripcord was pulled were still intact and the Germans realised that his story must be true.62

  Sergeant Geoffrey R Burwell the wireless operator and Sergeant Joe Cleary the navigator were the only other members of the seven-man crew to survive. Burwell was blown out of the aircraft and fell unconscious for 20,000 feet and came to, parachute trailing unopened. He pulled the ripcord, the chute opened and about five seconds later he hit a tall tree. His only injury was a cut lip which he got as he jumped to the ground. Cleary hit a pine tree and quickly lost consciousness, hanging in his harness from the tree. Villagers found him in the morning suffering from severe frostbite. He was taken to a small hospital where nuns managed to save his leg. He was repatriated in February 1945. Roy Keen met Alkemade in PoW camp. ‘He’d just got a bit of sticky plaster over one of his eyebrows! Falling at speeds of up to 120mph, it would have taken him about two minutes to hit the ground. He was fantastically lucky. All in all, I was very fortunate too. War teaches you a lot, especially as a prisoner; material things aren’t that important. I saw gold watches exchanged for half a loaf!’

  Lancaster C-Charlie on 166 Squadron reached Berlin and Flight Sergeant E Brown RAAF dropped its bombs at 25,000 feet. As they were leaving the target area, the two port engines were hit by flak and set on fire. Sergeant William Henry Burnell the mid-upper gunner recalls:

  My skipper ordered us to abandon the aircraft but at that point a German fighter, attracted by our aircraft on fire, came in to attack us. A shell from the fighter seared across the top of my head and knocked me out. When I came to, I was in the wreckage of the bomber; it had crashed into the side of a huge pine forest. I was much bruised. The only injury I received was from the shell of the German fighter and my head was split wide open. I then gave myself up at a German railway signal crossing. Next day I found out that all six of my crew were killed when they bailed out.63

  Back in England there were 516 empty beds on the bomber stations. Burnell and Roy Keen were among the 133 men taken prisoner on the Berlin raid; four would evade and return to England. Burnell was sent to Stalag Luft VI and in April 1945 he was injured by American attacks on the camp causing him to lose a lung. He was flown home on 4 May. A prisoner for fourteen months, Roy Keen always reckoned that he was lucky, being reasonably well treated. ‘The lack of food was the worst thing – I lost about three stones. My last trip in a Lanc was coming back from being a PoW. I took the top hatch off as we came over the coast and stuck my head out! The crew didn’t know about that!’

  Thirty-five major attacks were made on the ‘Big City’ and other German towns between mid-1943 and 24/25 March 1944; 20,224 sorties were flown in total, 9,111 of which were to Berlin. From these sorties, 1,047 aircraft failed to return and 1,682 received varying degrees of damage. At the start of battle Sir Arthur Harris had predicted that Berlin would ‘cost between 400–500 aircraft’ but that it would ‘cost Germany the war.’ He was proved wrong on both counts.

  The Battle of Berlin had proved not so much a gallant failure, but rather, a defeat.

  Notes

  1. W/C ‘Bill’ Forbes was KIA on the operation to Gravenhorst on 21/22 February 1945. At the time he commanded 463 Squadron RAAF. F/L ‘Bill’ Grime died with his CO. The other five members of his crew survived and were taken into captivity.

  2. Tame Boar crews claimed 40 kills, 7 pilots of 2 Wild Boar Gruppen (I. and II./JG 302) claiming another 8 Viermots shot down over Berlin. At least 32 bombers went down in the main air battle that was concentrated in the target area. Only three Nachtjäger were lost in return fire.

  3. Chorley.

  4. Greig and F/O Alan Roy Mitchell RAAF and crew of LM316 AR-H2 were all killed. A night fighter attacked W4881 AR-K, which exploded killing, Stockton and P/O James Herbert John English DFC RAAF a native of New South Wales, and three of the crew. Among the dead was Flight Sergeant Alexander Elias Kan RAAF from Victoria. Stockton is buried in the Berlin War Cemetery. See Legend of the Lancasters by Martin W Bowman (Pen & Sword 2009).

  5. F/L I D Bolton flying Lancaster I DV325 VN-B was shot down by a night fighter and crashed in the target area. Two crew died. Bolton and four of his crew were taken prisoner. Bennett escaped from captivity and managed to file his story at one point but he was later recaptured and held prisoner until the end of the war. See Legend of the Lancasters by Martin W Bowman (Pen & Sword 2009).

  6. Murrow continued to report on the war from Europe and North Africa throughout WW2. A heavy smoker, he died on 22 April 1965 aged 57.

  7. Two Stirlings and their crews were lost and a third crashed trying to land back at Acklington airfield, killing six of the crew. H-Harry, one of the two missing aircraft, crashed in Denmark. V-Victor on 199 Squadron at Lakenheath, which was flown by Flight Sergeant John Alfred Knowles mid was hit by flak and crashed near the lighthouse on Hirsholmene near Frederishavn where the pilot, Sergeant Kenneth James Robotham the tail gunner and 2nd Lieutenant Carl Carlson USAAF who had been awarded the Air Medal and the Purple Heart, were laid to rest in the town cemetery. The four other crew’s names were added to the Runnymede Memorial.

  8. Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 1943.

  9. A combination of Zahme Sau, Objektnachtjagd (Target Area night fighting) and (in the Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland areas) Himmelbett night-fighting tactics. German radar began picking up J beams at 18.00 hours and the assembly of the RAF formations, their leaving England and approach, were all plotted correctly by H2S bearings. Mosquito ‘spoof’ attacks on Kassel and Hannover were clearly recognized as such. Large scale jamming of German radio and radar was carried out. I Jagdkorps VHF was jammed by bell sounds, R/T traffic was rendered almost impossible, HF was jammed by quotations from Hitler’s speeches and alternate and Division frequencies were jammed also, as was the Soldatenrundfunksender (Forces Broadcasting Station) Anne Marie. Although successful
at first, Objektnachtjagd proved to have weaknesses easily exploitable by Bomber Command. It was not until the twin engined night fighters were used for route interception that Nachtjagd could begin to inflict heavy losses again but Bomber Command’s new tactics of multiple and shallow raids on invasion targets in France offset the effectiveness of route interception.

  10. The 30 night fighters engaged in Objektnachtjagd, 28 for Zahme Sau and 34 for Himmelbett (over Jutland) shot down 20 bombers. Wilde Sau night fighters and flak brought down another five. Only three German aircraft were lost. Six Halifax aircraft engaged on SOE operations were also lost as a result of the bad weather conditions.

  11. See No Moon Tonight by Don Charlwood (Penguin 1988).

  12. Bombers First and Last by Gordon Thorburn (Robson Books 2006).

  13. On the operation on Berlin on 3/4 September Randall had abandoned his Lancaster over the Danish Island Zealand very close to Sweden after two of his engines were knocked out by a night fighter over the target. Flight Sergeant N J Conway RAAF was never seen again; two were taken prisoner by the Germans in Denmark; and Sergeant A H Jones who came down in Denmark later escaped to Sweden. Randall and Sergeant H Bell, one of his gunners, came down in the sea between Zealand and Sweden and they were picked up by a Swedish patrol boat. Randall had been quickly returned to England, being awarded an immediate DFC and returning to operations.

  14. See Bombers First and Last by Gordon Thorburn (Robson Books 2006). Glover was awarded the DFC.

  15. Lieutenant N Stiller USAAF a New Yorker on the crew of F/O Kenneth Lloyd Brager RCAF on 408 ‘Goose’ Squadron RCAF also died this night, as did everyone on board his Lancaster; one of two that FTR to Linton-on-Ouse.

  16. Argent, Trevena, Fradley and three others of the crew were killed on 14 January 1944 on the operation to Brunswick. Two crew members survived to be taken prisoner. See Bombers First and Last by Gordon Thorburn (Robson Books 2006).

  17. Later Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Michael Beetham CGB CBE DFC AFC.

  18. Lancaster; The Biography by S/L Tony Iveson DFC and Brian Milton (André Deutsch, 2009).

  19. This raid, the final one to the Big City, on 29/30 December was a maximum effort involving 712 aircraft, 457 of them Lancasters and the remainder, 252 Halifaxes and three Mosquitoes.

  20. Twenty aircraft – 11 Lancasters, 9 Halifaxes – were lost. A 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron Lancaster landed damaged at Woodbridge on return.

  21. Out of the Blue: The Role of Luck in Air Warfare 1917–1966 edited by Laddie Lucas (Hutchinson 1985)

  22. Despite atrocious winter weather Nachtjagd claimed 169 victories during the final month of 1943 against 28 aircraft lost.

  23. The delay had also caused a change to the route, which was originally planned as a wide northerly approach over Denmark and the Baltic and a long southerly withdrawal south of the Ruhr and over Belgium. The late take offs would not allow enough hours of darkness for this long flight and the bombers were ordered to fly to Berlin on the much used direct route across Holland. The Berlin Raids by Martin Middlebrook (Viking 1998, Cassell 2000).

  24. Jim Donnan remained at large for the next 24 hours but when he asked some German civilians for some food and drink he was taken into custody. Lancaster III DV189 BQ-T2 crashed between Holtrup and Schweringen and blew up with its full bomb load, including a ‘cookie’, in a deafening explosion. Bryson and Roxby had been trapped in the cockpit and were killed in the crash. They were interred at Hassel and at Hoya, later re-buried in Hannover War Cemetery. Flight Sergeant Paul Evans, the bomb aimer and Sergeant Don Fadden, flight engineer had a very lucky escape. They were also in the nose section when the aircraft suddenly dived, pinning them down with the centrifugal forces. They were released when an explosion blew off the front of the nose section, enabling them to escape by parachute just before the bomber crashed. The Lancaster’s starboard wing and the incendiary bombs in the front of the bomb bay were set on fire by a surprise Schräge Musik attack. Most probably Bryson’s Lancaster was one of the six shot down in quick succession by Major Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (his 69–74th victories) who had succeeded in penetrating the bomber stream bound for Berlin. Most of these Viermots were Path Finders flying at the front of the bomber stream. DV189 was probably Wittgenstein’s third kill of the night.

  25. Of the missing bombers, 21 were destroyed by Tame Boars. Two Gruppen of JG 302 operating over the target claimed another four Viermots. Returning to England a 115 Squadron Lanc at Witchford force-landed at Stretham, 4 miles SSW of Ely. There were no injuries. A 550 Squadron Lancaster that took from Grimsby at 00.05 hours crashed at Whaplode Drove 8 miles SE of Spalding in Lincolnshire at 07.08 hours, resulting in the death of everyone on F/O Roger Hanson Mawle’s crew, including F/O Georges Marie Ghislain de Menten de Horne, a Belgian.

  26. The Berlin Raids by Martin Middlebrook. (Viking 1998, Cassell 2000).

  27. Chorley.

  28. P/O J A McIntosh DFC was shot down flying a Halifax on the night of 24/25 March 1944 on the operation on Berlin. Jim McIntosh, P/O Bob Elvin, bomb aimer; F/O Small and P/O Clyde Schell the wireless operator survived and were taken into captivity. Bandle, Walter Charles William King and Sergeant Andrew F de Dauw, who was from Tilbury, Ontario were killed. Bandle, Elvin and Schell all came from Toronto. ‘Wally’ King, who was from Norwich, was the only Englishman on the otherwise all-Canadian crew.

  29. 15 of which, were destroyed by the Nachtjagd.

  30. Developed by Oberst Victor von Lossberg of the Luftwaffe’s Staff College in Berlin, Zahme Sau, which had successfully been employed for the first time on 17/18 August, the night of the Peenemünde raid, was a method used whereby the (Himmelbett) ground network by giving a running commentary, directed its night fighters to where the Window concentration was at its most dense. Night fighters were fed into the bomber stream (which was identified by H2S transmissions) as early as possible, preferably on a reciprocal course. Crews then hunted on their own using SN-2 AI radar, which unlike early Lichtenstein AI could not be jammed by Window; Naxos 7 (FuG 350) which homed onto the H2S navigation radar; and Flensburg (FuG 227/1) homing equipment. Long Window made its appearance in July for jamming SN-2 radar (which previously was unsusceptible to Window).

  31. The Halifax was abandoned over Lievin in the Pas-de-Calais. Three of the crew, including Stokes, who though badly wounded crawled to a farm and was given first aid before being taken into custody, became PoWs. The navigator, mid-upper gunner and rear gunner were given shelter by a farmer in the Pas de Calais and were liberated by the Canadian Second Army in June 1944. P/O Whitehead began walking and while crossing a plain he looked up and saw the large Canadian memorial on Vimy Ridge. He walked through Arras, right past the German HQ near the station. Then he walked further south down the road to Bapaume, round Peronne and on to Ham where he was helped by the Resistance. He travelled along the escape line and arrived in Gibraltar on 2 May 1944. He was in the UK two days later. He found out that their forecast wind was from 270° but during the evening it had unexpectedly veered round to due north, thus forcing them south of their intended track. See Out of the Blue: The Role of Luck in Air Warfare 1917–1966 edited by Laddie Lucas (Hutchinson 1985).

  32. Two bodies were recovered in 1944 and are buried in the Berlin War Cemetery, but two other bodies were never found. Remains unearthed at the crash site were later identified by DNA testing as those of the aircraft’s flight engineer, Sergeant John Bremner who was buried with full military honours close to the grave of Sergeant Kenneth Stanbridge in the Berlin 1939–1945 War Cemetery at Heerstrasse in October 2008.

  33. Wittgenstein’s third kill of the night was probably Lancaster III ED547 PO-M flown by F/L Leo Braham Patkin RAAF on 467 Squadron RAAF, which Wittgenstein set on fire with a single burst. The bomber flew on for a few moments before plunging down and crashing in flames at 0230 at Altmerdingsen, near Burgdorf, Germany. The aircraft exploded so violently on impact that roofs and windows of nearby houses were shattered and
the crater caused was approximately 25 yards in diameter.

  34. The month ended with the Nachtjagd scoring an all-time monthly record of 308 Bomber Command aircraft shot down. I Jagdkorps claimed at least 223 victories (including 114 during the three Berlin raids 29 January–1 February) but lost 55 aircraft and crews during January 1944. Losses had reduced the front-line strength to 179 operational aircraft and crews by 31 January.

  35. The Reich defences too, were in need of an overhaul. On 30 January the first move to affect closer liaison between Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte and the operational side of the Air Defence of the Reich saw the creation of Luftflotte Reich. Generaloberst Weise was relieved from his flak command of Air Defence of the Reich and replaced by Generaloberst Hans-Jurgen Stumpff. His new command was now responsible for all day and night fighter aircraft and all anti-aircraft regiments. Göring had opposed improvement but the Allied air forces had forced a number of changes to be adopted. Defensive Nachtjagd operations over the Reich during February 1944 began relatively quietly, no First Jagdkorps claims being submitted before the night of the 15/16th when 143 crews were deployed against a raid by 891 aircraft against Berlin. They claimed 39 victories, mainly over the Reich capital for the loss of 11 night fighters.

  36. The previous record was 826 aircraft which included Stirlings and Wellingtons, sent to Dortmund on the night of 23/24 May 1943.