Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers Read online

  Aircrew

  By the same author

  The Technique of Television Announcing

  Four Men Went to War

  Aircrew

  The Story of the Men

  Who Flew the Bombers.

  Bruce Lewis

  LEO COOPER

  LONDON

  First published in Great Britain in 1991

  by Leo Cooper, 190 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JL

  an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 47 Church Street,

  Barnsley, S. Yorks S70 2AS.

  Copyright © Bruce Lewis, 1991

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 0 85052 4474

  Phototypeset by Input Typesetting Ltd, London SW19 SDR

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham

  To Miki with Love

  Contents

  Glossary

  Introduction

  One In the Beginning

  Two The Pilot/Navigator

  Three The Air Gunner

  Four The Flight Engineer

  Five The Bomb Aimer

  Six The U/T Pilot

  Seven The Navigator

  Eight The Wireless Operator and Others

  Nine The Co-Pilot

  Ten Gunners of the United States 8th Army Air Force

  Eleven Pilot V Pilot

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  ABC: Airborne Cigar. Powerful transmitters carried by Lancasters of 101 Squadron to jam enemy instructions to Luftwaffe night fighters.

  ASI: Airspeed Indicator.

  ATA: The Air Transport Auxiliary whose pilots, both men and women, ferried aircraft from the factories to the squadrons.

  Bullseye: Code name for participation by an OTU trainee crew in a bombing raid. Often with a ‘screen’ or experienced pilot.

  Circuits and Bumps: A training exercise in which a pilot took off in an aircraft, circled the airfield and landed – repeating the exercise over and over again until he was completely familiar with the flying characteristics of that particular machine.

  Cookie: The standard 4,000 lb blast bomb carried by RAF Bomber Command. It was an unstreamlined drum made from thin mild steel and filled with molten RDX explosive. The casing made up only 20% of the weight. There was also an 8,000 lb version.

  DR: Dead Reckoning; basic navigation without the help of radar or radio aids.

  ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival.

  FIDO: Fog Intensive Dispersal Operation. Pipes laid either side of the runway had petrol pumped through them under pressure. This was ignited and blazed upwards through perforations in the pipes. It was an effective, if costly, method of dispersing fog in the vicinity of the airfield.

  Freya: Luftwaffe code for their ground radar used to detect approaching bomber forces.

  Gee: Bomber-navigation radar, dependent on pulses received from ground stations in England.

  George: Automatic pilot.

  Grand Slam: 22,000 lb bomb. The largest bomb ever carried in World War Two. Designed by Barnes Wallis, only the Lancaster could deliver it.

  Ground Cigar: Powerful transmitters sited in England and manned by German-speaking operators, men and women, broadcasting false instructions to enemy night fighters.

  H2S: The first self-contained airborne navigational radar needing no ground stations.

  IFF: Identification Friend or Foe. An automatic transmitter giving aircraft a distinctive shape or ‘blip’ on a radar screen, distinguishing it from enemy ‘blips’.

  Kammhuber Line: Named after its instigator, Generalmajor Josef Kammhuber, it was a defensive line of searchlights, flak guns and ground-controlled night-fighters, stretching from Denmark in the north down the entire length of the enemy-occupied coast. It finally comprised over 200 separate ‘boxes’ each with is own control centre. British bombers had to pass through this defensive screen both on the outward leg, and when returning from a raid.

  Knickebein: (Crooked Leg). Code-name for a system of radio navigational beams used by the Luftwaffe to bomb British cities at night in 1940. By the autumn of that year British scientists had learned the secrets of its operation and introduced counter-measures which included ‘bending’ the beam.

  Lichtenstein or Li: Luftwaffe code for their AI (Airborne Interception) radar equipment.

  LMF: Lack of Moral Fibre. A cruel tag applied to aircrew who could no longer face up to the demands of operational flying.

  Monica: Code-name for radar equipment used in RAF bombers to detect enemy night-fighters approaching from the rear. Hastily discontinued when it was discovered these same night fighters were ‘homing in’ on Monica’ s radar emissions.

  MU: Maintenance Unit.

  Naxos: Luftwaffe code for their version of ‘Serrate’.

  Nickels: Leaflet raids carried out in the early stages of the war. Operations known cynically in the RAF as ‘Bumphleteering’.

  Oboe: Radio beam navigation system. Two ground stations transmitted beams which intersected at the target. It was so accurate that crews could bomb ‘blind’ with it, but it was limited in range to about 350 miles. Effective over the industrial haze of the Ruhr.

  OTU: Operational Training Unit. Originally the last stage before joining a squadron, but later becoming, at most, the penultimate state, when … HCU: Heavy Conversion Units were introduced. At these crews were familiarised with the big four-engine bombers, usually Halifaxes. There was a further stage at…

  LFS: Lancaster Finishing School, for those crews fortunate enough to be selected to fly ‘Lanes’.

  Perfectos: Refined radar equipment fitted in night intruder Mosquitoes which triggered the Luftwaffe version of IFF signals in their night-fighters. The successor to Serrate.

  RDF: Radio Direction Finding.

  Serrate: Radar receiver used for detecting German night-fighter radar emissions and carried by night intruder Beaufighters. SABS: Stabilizing Automatic Bomb Sight.

  Ship: American term for an aircraft.

  Special Operator or ‘Special’: The eighth member of crews flying with 101 Squadron. German speaking, the Special operated ABC equipment.

  Tallboy: 12,000 lb deep-penetration ‘earthquake’ bomb. Also the brain-child of Barnes Wallis, Lancasters of 617 Squadron were specially adapted to the job of carrying it.

  Tame Boar, (Zahme Sau): German code name for infiltration of the bomber stream by twin-engine night-fighters, Messerschmitt 110s and Junkers 88s. Guided into the stream by ground control, the interception was then carried out by the individual aircraft using their Lichtenstein radar.

  U/S: Unserviceable. Occasionally caused misunderstanding among servicemen from the United States.

  WAAF: Women’ s Auxiliary Air Force. Members of this force participated in most of the RAF skilled trades except flying.

  Wild Boar, (Wilde Sau): German code name for Luftwaffe night-fighters, (often single-engine day fighters pressed into night service), which massed high over the target to pick off RAF bombers silhouetted by the searchlights and flames. This method was rapidly introduced by the Germans after the dropping of ‘Window’ over Hamburg in July, 1943, scrambled their radar systems.

  Window: Metal strips cut to the same lengths as the wavelengths of German ground radar transmitters. When dropped from bombers at regular, timed, intervals it could either swamp the enemy radar screens, or, used more selectively, create a false impression of a major raid approaching, and even, as on D-day, simulate the advance of a vast seaborne invasion.

  Wurzburg: Code-name for two versions of Luftwaffe ground radar control systems. The smaller of the two installations was use
d to direct master searchlights and flak guns, while Wurzburg Reise, (Giant Wurzburg), accurately detected individual bombers, the information then being passed to night-fighters equipped with Lichtenstein.

  X-Verfahren: Code-name for a more advanced system of radio navigational beams operated by Heinkel 111s of Kampfgruppe 100, acting as pathfinders to the main force. Most successful on the raid against Coventry, it was afterwards rendered less effective by British countermeasures. (This system is often wrongly referred to as X-Gerat, a term which covered the airborne equipment only).

  Introduction

  I am aware of the number, some would say plethora, of books that have been published on the subject of the Allied Bombing Campaign in Europe during the Second World War. Many of these concentrate in detail on the strategic and tactical aspects of this campaign, and also on the remarkable application of radar that made possible the successful bombing of Germany by night. I have learned a great deal, particularly about high level policy, from reading carefully researched publications, often written by authors who were not even born at the time.

  However, as one who flew with Bomber Command, and who retains an undying respect for my companions of those days, I sometimes feel, because of the way the subject is presented, that there is a danger of the ‘machine’ and the ‘electronic wizardry’ taking precedence in people’ s minds over the human beings who actually crewed the bombers. To say, for example: 57 of our aircraft failed to return on 21/22 January, 1944, is rather different from reporting that over 400 airmen were lost on that night.

  So, in an attempt to redress the balance a little, this book is a combination of first-hand experiences told to me by a number of one-time aircrew members, mixed with a few personal memories, and a background filled in by a fair amount of research. Overall, I hope it throws some light on the tasks that these young volunteers undertook, and which they fulfilled to the best of their ability under terribly dangerous circumstances.

  I have included a section on the exploits of men of the United States 8th Army Air Force in addition to those of the RAF’ s Bomber Command – we were all airmen who flew to war over Europe in the ‘Heavies’, and were in it for the same purpose – to kick out the Nazis.

  Many thanks to all those kind people who made this book possible, including that painstaking historian, Martin Middle-brook, who has generously allowed me to refer to his definitive work The Bomber Command War Diaries. Also the staff of The Memorial Library Second Air Division USAAF for giving me so much help during my visit to Norwich. I am grateful for Mr Andrew Renwick’ s careful guidance in the Photographic Department of the RAF Museum, Hendon, and to his colleague, Mr David Ring, who rendered valuable help at the eleventh hour. Lastly, and particularly, those ‘ex-bomber types’, who told me, without a trace of self-promotion, what happened to them while flying in the wartime skies over Europe.

  Bruce Lewis

  ONE

  In The Beginning

  It was my 18th birthday when I walked into the recruiting office and volunteered for Flying Duties with the Royal Air Force. Bomber Command had already been fighting a lonely, bitter war against Germany for over two years and was, at that time, going through a bad patch. Aircraft losses were mounting and results were disappointing. In Britain many powerful voices were murmuring that the money lavished on the bomber offensive could be better spent elsewhere in the pursuit of victory. I, of course, like the rest of the British public, knew nothing of these political undercurrents.

  Most of us who were to fly in the four-engine ‘Heavies’ – the Lancasters and Halifaxes that sustained the great onslaught against the enemy in the later years of the war – were either still at school, or starting out on our first jobs, when war was declared against Germany on 3 September, 1939.

  Yet from that very first day of hostilities crews were climbing into their slab-sided, matt black Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys, while others struggled to board the less cumbersome, but unbelievably cramped Handley Page Hampdens – with fuselages only three feet across at the widest point!

  Luckiest, from the standpoint of flying the best RAF bomber then available, were those crews who manned the remarkable Vickers Wellington. Basically it was a metal and wood basket covered in canvas. It was everything that a warplane should be – strong, reliable, able to absorb untold punishment and regarded with real affection by the men who flew in her. They nicknamed her the ‘Wimpey’. Designed by Barnes Wallis, the genius whose name is irrevocably linked with Bomber Command, the ‘Wimpey’ was the only aircraft among those early bombers to be still on active service at the end of the war.

  This trio of twin-engine bombers, pitifully lacking in defensive armament, painfully slow, yet remarkably rugged, was the mainstay of Bomber Command’s offensive against Germany in the early years of the war. In the beginning they were crewed by men who had made flying their career in the peacetime RAF. The training they had received had ill-prepared them for the arduous duties that lay ahead – especially in the essential skills of navigation by night.

  These professional airmen alone carried the war to the doorstep of the enemy. From among the few survivors of that era emerged the leaders of the many who were to follow – outstanding flyers including Guy Gibson of Dam Buster fame, Leonard Cheshire who won his Victoria Cross for numerous acts of supreme courage rather than for a single incident, and Don Bennett, leader of the Pathfinder Force, a superb pilot and brilliant navigator.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American President, had appealed to all European nations to refrain from ‘unrestricted aerial warfare on civilian populations or unfortified towns’. Britain, in her immediate reply to the President, had promised that ‘indiscriminate attack on civilian populations as such will never form part of our policy’. Undoubtedly this was sincerely meant at the time, but in the light of what was to happen as the war progressed no statement could have presaged a more bitter irony.

  Even so, as darkness fell on that first night of war, ten Whitleys, three from 51 Squadron and seven from 58 Squadron, took off from their grass runways and set course to the east. The Whitley was the only RAF bomber specially designed to fly at night. The crews had been trained accordingly, but under conditions of peace, when it was comparatively simple to navigate from one well-lit town to another while flying over home territory.

  It is remarkable, in the light of later operational strategy, that these poor old kites, pushing their way through the night at all of 120 mph, visited between them Hamburg, Bremen and no less than nine other cities in the Ruhr during the course of that one mission. Of course, they did not drop a single bomb on the Germans – instead they rained down 5½ million leaflets!

  Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris, whose name is synonymous with Bomber Command, spoke for many in the RAF – particularly those aircrew who had to risk their lives dropping these bits of paper:

  In the earliest stages of the war we were not allowed to bomb anything on land, and our only possible targets were therefore warships, which we could attack only by day. Our losses from enemy fighters and flak were prohibitive and we therefore desisted before we had done ourselves or the enemy much harm. Meanwhile the Whitleys and Hampdens were put to the questionable employ of dropping pamphlets all over Europe, a game in which we never had the slightest faith. My personal view is that the only thing achieved was largely to supply the Continent’s requirements of toilet paper for the five long years of war.

  As Sir Arthur said, our losses were prohibitive. After a series of hard lessons, Bomber Command had to admit that the theory of the successful ‘self-defending bomber’ operating by day had been no more than a peacetime pipe-dream. Even the concentrated fire from Wellingtons flying in close formation had proved inadequate in warding off attacks from German single-engine fighters.

  The climax was reached on 18 December, 1939, when twenty-two Wellingtons flew on an armed reconnaissance sortie over Wilhelmshaven. At 13,000 feet they could see and be seen for miles through a cloudless sky. The crews wer
e obliged to break formation to a certain extent because of the intense flak. Unknown to them, for the first time a German ground controller was operating an experimental ‘Freya’ radar station.

  This controller had detected the British bombers when they were still 70 miles from their target. As they turned for home, the waiting fighters tore into their ranks with vicious beam attacks. The Luftwaffe pilots had quickly learned that an approach from this quarter left the Wellington at its most vulnerable. After a running battle only ten of the twenty-two bombers remained. It was small consolation that gunners in the Wellingtons managed to shoot down two of the German fighters.

  Five out of a force of twelve Wellingtons had been shot down in the same area only four days previously. So, out of thirty-four bombers dispatched on those two raids, exactly half had been lost. Eighty-five aircrew did not return to their squadrons.

  As a result of these disastrous set-backs, and in view of further tragic losses sustained during the short but hopeless Norwegian campaign the following April, a change of policy was forced on Bomber Command. It was vital to conserve the small number of bombers and the limited supply of crews then on squadron strength. It was difficult to gauge when the full Nazi onslaught in the West would begin, or exactly what form it would take.

  If the Wehrmacht marched against France, every bomber the RAF possessed would be needed to harry the enemy’s lines of communication. Or, should the Luftwaffe engage in an all-out bombing offensive against Britain, then plans were ready to strike at German airfields and supply depots. Schemes to destroy industrial centres, oil refineries and storage facilities had also been worked out in detail.

  Meanwhile, by the turn of the year Hampdens and Wellingtons were joining the night-flying Whitleys on ‘Bumphleteering’ raids, as the crews called them. At least the airmen were gaining experience in flying over enemy territory in the dark. Navigation was based on ‘dead reckoning’, radio ‘fixes’ when not too far from base, and, on moonlit nights, observation of ground features such as lakes, rivers and coastal landmarks. In addition it was sometimes possible to take ‘star shots’ with the sextant, a time-honoured aid to navigation at sea, but only of limited value in the air because of problems caused by the speed and motion of the aircraft.