Bomber Command
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37. In just one week of sustained operations Bomber Command and the USAAF dropped 19,000 tons of bombs on the Reich but 224 American and 157 British bombers failed to return.
38. The main disadvantage of the ‘spoof’ was that the aircraft had to turn back before reaching the enemy coast, thus reducing the period during which they appeared a threat to the enemy On 23 July the addition of a small force of special Window aircraft, which flew with the OTU aircraft but carried on when the spoof Force turned back, solved this weakness. The Germans reported that about ‘100’ (RAF figures are 19) Intruder attacks on airfields at Gilze Rijen, Deelen and Venlo caused only minor damage. Oberfeldwebel Rudolf Frank of 3./NJG3 claimed five ‘Lancasters’ destroyed to take his score to 34 kills. Oberleutnant Martin ‘Tino’ Becker, Staffelkapitän, 2./NJG6 aided by his Bordfunker Unteroffizier Karl-Ludwig Johanssen claimed two Halifaxes and two Lancasters to take his score to ten victories.
39. The Yanks Are Coming by Edwin R W Hale and John Frayn Turner (Midas Books 1983).
40. Meister assumed command of III./NJG4 in December 1944, leading it until the end of the war by which time he had been credited with 39 victories.
41. Thorburn.
42. WO Gilbertson-Pritchard later became a fighter pilot flying Mustang Mark IVs on 154 Squadron at Hunsdon and was KIA on 31 March 1945.
43. See Point Blank and Beyond by Lionel Lacey-Johnson (Airlife Classic 1991)
44. The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book 1939–1945 Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt (Midland 1985).
45. The Ju 88C-6’s inability to attack well-armed enemy bombers successfully made it necessary to develop a heavy night fighter with superior performance and so the more powerful G series was ordered for the first time in the secret production schedule of February 1942, calling for 140 of these heavy day and night destroyers. By May the number was increased to 707 Ju 88G-1s and was increasing every month. In 1943 it was planned to rebuild most of these aircraft to R-1 or R-2 standard. In March the first Ju 88C-6 was converted into an R-1 by installing two BMW 801MA radial engines. The first aircraft delivered to NJG1 still used the elderly FuG 212 C1 radar. Only a few of these machines saw active service. By September only seven aircraft had been built, of which three were accepted and flown. In addition, all the Ju 88R-2s would be equipped with SN2 radar and armed with two oblique 20mm cannon. Production of the upward-firing weapon sets was too low and only every second Ju 88 could be fitted with Schräge Musik. By November only 13 Ju 88R-2s had been transferred to front-line units. The first contract had covered 130 of these aircraft but the shortage of BMW 801 radials, which were being used for all FW 190 series, delayed delivery. Most Ju 88R-2s were armed with three MG17 machine-guns and three 20mm cannon but sometimes MG FFs were installed in their place. Defensive armament comprised a single MG131 in the rear cockpit and the radar and wireless system covered both the FuG 202 and FuG 212. See The Junkers 88: Star of The Luftwaffe by Manfred Griehl.
46. The two others who died were F/O William Reid RCAF, navigator and Sergeant Francis Smith RAFVR, mid-upper gunner. The other 408 ‘Goose’ Squadron RCAF Lancaster that was lost was P-Peter flown by Flight Sergeant Norman Andrew Lumgair RCAF. Three aircraft were lost on Amiens and on return a Stirling III was destroyed in a mid-air collision with a Wellington X on 11 OTU. All the Stirling crew were killed. Oberleutnant Herbert Koch had 22 confirmed Abschüsse by late April 1945 when he was in command of 1./NJG3. His 23rd Abschuss on 24/25 April had gone down in history as the Nachtjagd’s 7,308th and final victory in WWII. Night Airwar: Personal recollections of the conflict over Europe, 1939–45 by Theo Boiten. (Crowood Press 1999).
47. Flight Sergeant Bond and this crew were KIA on the operation on Tergnier on 10/11 April 1944. Hauptmann Heinz Reschke and Unteroffizier Josef Fischer were killed on 24/25 April 1944 when their Bf 110G-4 collided with another Bf 110G-4 whilst returning to Illescheim from an operational sortie. Gefreiter Werner Hohn the air gunner was injured. Reschke had six confirmed night Abschüsse.
48. RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War Vol. 5 1944, by W R Chorley (Midland Publishing 1997). Night Airwar: Personal recollections of the conflict over Europe, 1939–45 by Theo Boiten. (Crowood Press 1999).
49. RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War Vol. 5 1944, by W R Chorley (Midland Publishing 1997).
50. Adapted from Farewell to Binbrook, Grimsby Evening Telegraph, 25 June 1988.
51. I Jagdkorps crews claimed 38 heavies destroyed. Six of these (four Halifaxes and two Lancasters) went to Oberleutnant Martin ‘Tino’ Becker, Staffelkapitän 2./NJG6 and Unteroffizier Karl-Ludwig Johanssen, his Funker, during a Tame Boar sortie from Finthen aerodrome. After being led into the bomber stream, all their victims went down within an hour between 21.42 and 22.39 hours.
52. The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book 1939–1945 Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt (Midland 1985).
53. When two bombers on a squadron carried the same aircraft letter the second aircraft, in this case ‘B’, was referred to as ‘B Squared’ and B2 would be painted on the fuselage.
54. Halifax III LW540 LK-R.
55. Eric Sanderson was taken to a village nearby and next day was transported to Herborn 15 miles from Frankfurt where he met G/C Nigel W D Marwood-Elton. Happily, he was re-united with the other members of his crew over the next few days. All eight men had bailed out safely before their Halifax crashed. On New Year’s Eve 1940 S/L Marwood-Elton was the pilot of Wellington N2980 R-Robert on 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth which lost its starboard engine 20 minutes after take-off in rapidly deteriorating weather. Marwood-Elton ordered his crew to bail out. Subsequently he spotted a long expanse of water through a break in the thick cloud and decided to ditch. It was Loch Ness. The only casualty was Sergeant Fensome the rear gunner who died when his parachute malfunctioned. In 1984 the Loch Ness Wellington Association was formed and R-Robert was subsequently recovered from Loch Ness on 21 September 1985 and is now on permanent display at Brooklands Museum.
56. In November 1978 Sanderson and Rökker came face to face for the first time at a meeting of the German Air War Historical Society at Hetschbach, Germany. They shook hands and from that very moment became friends. Rökker concludes: ‘I think that such a friendship between former adversaries can only develop, if both sides approach each other unreservedly. Our contact is the same as I have with my German friends. Not the past but the present rules our close friendship.’
57. Somers was already a member of the famed ‘Caterpillar Club’. On the night of 24/25 February 1944 during a night training flight Somers was on the crew of P/O D H Stitt who all had bailed out before the Lancaster crashed at Wilhoughton Manor, Lincolnshire.
58. Tom Bennett.
59. The Berlin Raids by Martin Middlebrook. (Viking 1998, Cassell 2000).
60. Pathfinders by W/C Bill Anderson OBE DFC AFC (Jarrolds London 1946).
61. F/O George Carlisle Reed; F/O Benjamin Cynddylon Jones, air bomber; Sergeant Frank Edward Fountaine; Flight Sergeant Kenneth Gordon Mitchell and Sergeant P O Owen were killed.
62. On 21/22 January 1944 on a raid on Magdeburg, F/L T P McGarry DFC, a Northern Irishman on 35 Squadron, bailed out of his Halifax, landed in fir trees and survived after his parachute failed to open.
63. The next four night raids were made on the railway yards at Aulnoye in Northern France on 25/26 March and then Essen and Courtrai the next night and after two nights of rest, the railway yards at Vaires near Paris on the 29/30th when the main raid planned for Brunswick was cancelled. By far the biggest of these was the attack by over 700 aircraft on Essen, just across the German frontier, which caught the JLOs off guard and only nine aircraft were lost.
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