аЯрЁБс>ўџ ЮаўџџџЬЭџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџьЅСs ПCЏjbjbР Р %fЊkЊkCЋџџџџџџ]–––––––ЖЖЖЖЖ ТЖЛъъъъъъъъъxzzzzzz,Ѕє™КІ–ъъъъъІо––ъъъоооъю–ъ–ъxЊ†0†––––ъxоšоx––xо .kЛЖЖиx Chapter V - World War Two Starts for 214 Squadron Laughing through the clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed Cities and men he smote from overhead. His deaths delivered, he returned to play, Childlike, with childish things now put away . . . Rudyard Kipling Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April, 1940, ending the phoney war. The Allies sent forces to help the Norwegians, but the German blitzkrieg had once more overwhelmed an unprepared country, and the campaign was of short duration. By early May, all resistance was at an end, except for some isolated units still holding out in the mountains. The Germans now turned their attention to France and the Low Countries, and at first light on May 10th, Hitler's forces smashed their way through the frontiers of Belgium and Holland. Within days Holland fell and the Germans swept on through Belgium to the North Sea and Channel coasts. Meanwhile, a breakthrough was made at Sedan, and the German panzers ranged through France. Following air attacks on Rotterdam on May 14th, the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, gave permission for air attacks to be carried out on German mainland targets. Within three weeks some 1700 sorties were flown over Germany in the hours of darkness. By June 4th, evacuation of the BEF from the beaches of Dunkirk was over and all Allied units had left France by the 20th. Britain now stood alone. As the Hurricanes and Spitfires of Fighter Command proved to be our saviours in the Battle of Britain which followed, the Hampdens, Wellingtons and Whitleys of Bomber Command brought promise for the future by taking the fight to the enemy, and bombing the heartland of Hitler's Germany. Even at this stage of the war, when Germany looked invincible, and it appeared to be only a question of time before the German war machine would conquer Britain, Goering showed concern over the nightly raids by the RAF. He was under the misconception that his flak batteries could deal with enemy bombers, and made an earlier claim that "no enemy aircraft would penetrate the Ruhr." When the RAF made its first German raid on May 15/16, the enemy was taken by surprise. This, and further raids soon after, convinced Goering that he would need a night fighter force to combat the British bombers. Goering made a sound choice in selecting General Josef Kammhuber to command this new force. The General was a man of ability who displayed great drive and good judgement. His method of interception was as follows: Early-warning radars situated on the coast would alert the fighters to the approach of our bombers. The fighters would then take off and orbit radio beacons until such time as a bomber was illuminated by searchlights. Then, once the bomber was visible, the fighters would attack. This system, known as Helle Nachjagd (illuminated night fighting), was soon found to be only partially successful. The draw-back was that the searchlights and flak batteries were stationed around towns, so contact with the bombers was usually over the target area where both bomber and fighter alike were subjected to a flak barrage. Kammhuber decided to deploy his searchlights clear of the towns and placed them on a belt which stretched from Schleswig-Holstein to Liege. This meant that bombers had to negotiate the belt on the way to the Ruhr. He next set up a box system for his night fighters, each fighter patrolling a section of the night sky in the searchlight belt. This deployment was a great step forward, but success was dependent on weather. If cloudy conditions prevailed, searchlights were ineffective, and in view of this, Kammhuber concentrated on ground control interception based on radar. The Freya radar proved unsuitable because the blips from fighter and bomber merged on the screen long before the fighter pilot was in visual range of his target. The Wurzburg set, when introduced, was found to give better resolution and could also be used as the radar link for predicted flak and master searchlights. As the new radars became available, Kammhuber set up a series of boxes along the defence line he had created, known as the Kammhuber Line. Each box was equipped with one Freya and two Wurzburg sets. The Freya directed the Wurzburgs onto the incoming bombers; one to track a bomber, the other to track the fighter patrolling in that particular box. The box controller was in radio contact with the fighter and vectored him within visual range of the bomber so that he could make his attack. Combats with night fighters soon taught the RAF bomber crews the areas to avoid. Long detours were made, both to the north and to the south, but the Kammhuber Line was extended and finally stretched from Norway to the Swiss frontier. It was also further deepened when the fighter boxes were placed forward of the searchlight zone, making a formidable barrier for our bombers. This, then, was the situation in 1940. No. 214 Squadron was still on reserve, but on the night of June 14/15 Flight Commander 'Shrub' Sellick and P/O 'Baggy' Sachs carried out operations with No. 9 Squadron, then based at Honington. This was the first operation by 214 personnel in World War 2. The target that night was to certain areas of the Black Forest where it was thought that dumps, depots, etc., were hidden. Incendiary devices were dropped with the object of setting the forest on fire. During the next few weeks the Squadron sent other crews to Honington and on the night of June 25/26 six aircraft flew sorties from Stradishall for the first time, and all returned safely to base. During 1940, C Flight was formed. On March 10, F/Lt Wells took over as OC, which included training and armaments. S/Ldr Jimmy Balsdon, nicknamed 'God', became A Flight Commander, and S/Ldr 'Shrub' Sellick, B Flight Commander. By the end of 1940, after six months of operations, the Squadron had lost eight aircraft, either through enemy action or accident. Two of these were lost on the night of December 7/8 over Dusseldorf. No. 214 had made a good start in its bombing role. Compared with other front line squadrons, its losses were light. 214 looked forward with some confidence to the start of the coming year. Here are some of the recollections of 1940 by Sgt Pilot G. Cole, RAFVR: "Early in 1940 I was posted as an instructor to Lossiemouth, an OTU that was then being formed. Only a handful of pilots were there when I arrived, and no aircraft at all. Many days elapsed before we saw our first Wellington, but eventually one morning a Wimpy did arrive, flown in by a ferry pilot. For some of us this was the first time we had seen this type of aircraft, let alone flown in one, yet here we were, expected to instruct pupils, without experience ourselves. We had no data of any kind, or even pilot's notes to help us out. It wasn't until much later, for instance, I found that a dinghy was stowed in the wing! We begged the ferry pilot to stop over and give us a crash course on the Wellington I, which he kindly agreed to do. For the next three days he spent as much time as possible showing us the ropes. This was not without risk to himself, as the Wimpy I was without dual controls and he had to stand in the gangway behind the cockpit and explain the procedures. Added to this was the fact that some of us had very little experience in twin engine aircraft. "It was not long before my friend, Sgt Cattle, and I decided that this style of instruction was not for us. We requested the CO for permission to go to war. He told us that if we could find other people on the camp willing to make up a crew he would have no objections. Finding other crew members proved no difficulty. We went round the hangars and found four volunteers: two AC1 armourers, an LAC Wop/AG, and a direct entry Sgt/Navigator from the ground staff, all of whom were keen to get airborne. We called ourselves No. 1 crew, No. 1 course, and completed a do-it-yourself plan of instruction from a training schedule we had set ourselves. At the time no established method of training for OTU crews had been formulated. "On one of our training flights, just prior to take-off, our rear gunner fired off his guns into the ground beside the runway, and scared the wits out of the airmen on the camp who thought an enemy attack was developing. On landing, we were sent for by the CO and asked to explain our actions, whereupon the rear gunner said that, from his knowledge, gunners in the first World War had always adopted this method and that he had seen no orders to the contrary. The CO seemed satisfied with this explanation, but said, 'From now on we will have a new code of practice for air firing.' "Shortly after this we left Lossiemouth for a posting to No. 214 Squadron, which had just gone operational. The members of this Squadron had all been together for a long time. Our arrival, with Sgt Kerr's crew from Harwell and F/Lt O'Connor's from Bassingbourn, brought 214 up to strength. We reported to the CO, W/Cdr Nuttall, and handed in our posting notice. There was an embarrassing silence, broken only by under-breath mutterings of, 'Who has done this to me? What have I done wrong?' Then he thrust the list into my hand and said, 'Look at it.' It was only then I realised for the first time that, by coincidence, the crew's names read: Cole, Cattle, Hide, Cook, Butcher and Flannagan. He thought someone at Group had crewed us up as a joke. This sorted out, he detailed us to carry out a practice bombing exercise. "We took it in turns to fly the aircraft and it was Cattle's turn to drive. We decided that, to impress the Squadron with our talents, we would show our prowess at dive bombing. Approaching the range, Cattle went into a dive at 6000 feet and started to pull out at 1,500. Nothing happened and, with both of us holding the stick hard back, the aircraft continued downwards. To my horror I noticed that the wing tips had moved upwards by about three feet. The aircraft eventually pulled out of the dive at 200 feet but the controls were so sloppy that we doubted our ability to reach the base, expecting that at any minute something would break up. Our efforts must have impressed the range officer because on landing most members of the Squadron were there to meet us. When I told them what happened, I can still hear their laughter to this day.The aircraft we had been given was the first one made at a Shadow factory and was so badly rigged that no one on the Squadron would fly it. This machine had been allocated to us as a sort of initiation test, and our safe return entitled us to be accepted. "With our earlier Wellingtons we did have some problems, but these were of a minor nature. When the Wellingtons first arrived on the squadrons they were expected to be used as day bombers, but the losses suffered in 1939 made a reappraisal necessary. In 1940 they were used in a night bomber role. We still had windows running down both sides of the fuselage, but without curtains, and one of the first jobs I did was to install a lamp on the bombsight, as none was provided. This idea was brought into general use by other pilots. In fact, I believe most of the crews carried out some modification or other to their aircraft. "It wasn't long after joining the Squadron that F/O Filleul took over as our first pilot, Sgt Cattle having joined another crew. It was with F/O Filleul that I took part in a memorable raid in September. We were briefed to attack a small railway station in the Hartz Mountains, as reports had been received that Hitler would be spending the night there aboard a special train. With luck we might do ourselves and the world a service, if we could catch him with one of our bombs. When we arrived over the area, it was discovered that the cloud base was down to 2000 feet. This was decidedly dicey as we were flying over a mountainous terrain with peaks well above that level. We decided to drop a flare and instructions were passed to one of the crew to carry out this task. Unfortunately the appointed crew member had never dropped a flare before and managed to put it in the chute upside down without pushing it out the flare chute tube. As there had been some delay, I went back to check the operation and found that the propeller in the nose of the flare was revolving and the cannister was just starting to burn. Only by good fortune did I manage to eject the flare in time, but I still bear the scars to remind me of the incident. After the flare left the aircraft you can imagine our surprise when it only travelled a few yards before hitting terra firma. We were flying at ground level along a valley with mountain slopes all around us. Another surprise was that our flare had scored a direct hit on a cow, which now lay dead on the valley floor. We never did find our target, so never did get the chance to find out whether the report on Hitler was correct or not." F/Lt Filleul lost his life on the night of September 12, 1944, following his return for a second tour with the Squadron. Sgt Pilot Cole continues: "The first crew to go missing from 214 in 1940 was F/O Craigie-Halkett, on the first raid to Berlin. Craigie had been a civil airline pilot on the Berlin run pre-war and the general feeling was that he had perhaps shown too much of the 'press on' spirit and been shot down. Soon after this Sgt Chester and his crew were lost. I may have seen his aircraft shot down by fighters just over the Dutch coast but, as I was having a hot time of it myself at that moment had little time to make observations." He was most likely shot down by night fighter ace F.W. Heinz Struning who was credited with 56 victories and was himself killed on December 24, 1944. Back to Sgt Pilot Cole: "Not all the hazards we encountered were caused by the enemy. Sometimes we got it wrong mechanically. Due to a copper shortage, the rings on the plugs were made of aluminum instead of copper, and one night in October, on our way home from an operation to Hamburg, the plugs in one engine blew completely out. Limping back across the North Sea, we offered up a silent prayer and kept an anxious watch in case of trouble with the remaining engine. The gods of fate smiled kindly upon us that time and, somewhat later than expected, we arrived back at Stradishall. "Wing Commander F.E. Nuttall left the Squadron in October and we were all sorry to see him go. He had proved a good and popular leader, well liked by all ranks. The aircrew had a large picture of a Wellington made, inscribed their signatures, and gave it to the CO as a going away present. "It was only a short time after his departure that our crew was put on the battle order for the night. After carrying out our routine checks, we went back to the billets for a rest prior to briefing. As I was lying on the bed, looking vacantly into space and chewing gum, an apparition appeared at the door. It was an officer wearing a flat hat, tunic, jodhpurs with either riding boots or gaiters, and carrying a swagger cane. Slow to react in my comatose state, my jaw dropped but I still kept chewing gum. Meanwhile, the officer, who happened to be the new Commanding Officer, turned a deep shade of purple, gave me a blasting, put me on a charge and confined me to quarters until further notice. "It was soon obvious that the new CO was going to be strong on discipline and, as a warning to others, intended to make an example of my insubordination. Of course, events of this nature could not go unobserved. The news spread round like wildfire, soon coming to the ears of the Station Commander who immediately sent for us both. It was obvious to the Group Captain that it would be stupid to cancel an operation for a minor infringement. After hearing what we both had to say, he dismissed the charges against me and instructed the CO to wear regulation dress in future. This episode augured badly for our later relationship, which never reached a high level. An atmosphere of mistrust prevailed between us from then on.The CO had served a long period in India, and had left a peace-time posting for an operational one in the U.K. No doubt the uniform he wore was acceptable in some outposts of the Empire, where things had changed little since the end of World War 1, and he was perhaps unlucky to get off to such a bad start in his new command. "By the end of October I had completed half my tour and was first pilot in my aircraft. We carried out many important raids but two in particular were notable. The first was an operation to Dusseldorf on December 7th. With two other aircraft we were detailed to fly as pathfinders. This may have been the first of this kind of operation to be carried out in World War 2. We left thirty minutes ahead of the main force, which consisted of approximately sixty aircraft. This was the first time such a large number of planes was sent to bomb one target. Normally, only a few bombers would take part in an attack and the force would be directed to various targets, with the intention of causing as much disturbance as possible over a large area of Germany. Over Dusseldorf, we dropped the bomb load of incendiaries, contained in 18 cans, without a hitch, but Main Force, following up behind, had run into severe icing conditions and all had turned back. A vicious cold front had moved rapidly down the North Sea and we now flew into it on the way home. In attempting to climb above the front, we also ran into severe icing and lost both engines. The aircraft fell from 14,000 to 3,000 feet before we got one of the engines running again, but still continued to lose height. I had only just managed to get the second engine going when we were badly shot up crossing the enemy coast. The two other pathfinder aircraft went missing and the whole raid proved a fiasco due to poor weather forecasting. "The second raid was our trip to Venice on December 21. Italy had recently entered the war on Germany's side and this operation was to let them know that their northern cities were within range of our bombers. In fact, it may have been a retaliatory attack for Italian participation in the Battle of Britain. S/Ldr Sharp, F/Lt O'Connor and I, plus three crews from Marham, were detailed to bomb targets in Venice. This meant a round trip of some 1,500 miles, making it one of the longer bombing raids of the war. We were fitted out with auxiliary tanks, in view of the distance involved, and there was little margin for error in case of any emergency. On the outward journey there were problems with the fuel, due to the hand pump freezing up, and it took the combined efforts of two of the crew to transfer fuel from the auxiliaries. Arriving at last at Venice, the cloud cover was too thick for us to make an attack. Our instructions were to bomb a specific target near one of the lagoons, so could do no more than return to base with bomb load intact. There was no question of jettisoning one's bombs in those days as materials were scarce and armaments of all kinds were in short supply." Ken Bolton joined the Squadron in May, 1940, flying first with F/Lt Boffee and later Sgt Brown. He completed his tour in December, 1940, and was commissioned in 1943. He returned for a second tour with 102 Squadron and was shot down on his fourth trip. With the help of the Belgian and French Resistance, he made his way back to England, via Gibraltar. In 1944 Ken was a S/Ldr Navigation Officer and, whilst flying with G/Cpt Surplice on a supply drop to the Resistance in Norway, his plane crashed into the Hardanger Mountains. Once more evading capture he reached Sweden after 50 days in occupied territory. Sgt Observer K.J. Bolton recollects: "The Squadron was a friendly place in 1940. We had some marvellous characters: people like 'Shrub' Sellick, OC B Flight; 'Boy' Day, who eventually went missing when he was Master Bomber with PFF; his rear gunner who used to chant, 'late extra', 'all the racing', and 'get your papers', as he threw out leaflets a handful at a time. The leaflets were in oblong packs, and the tail gunner was supposed to swing his turret round, open the doors and throw the packs out so the wind would scatter them. Then we had a F/Lt air gunner, much older than the average aircrew, by the name of Fielding-Johnson, who was reputed to have been Portal's Flight Commander in World War 1. Another pilot, F/Lt Simpson, a South African, was mad as a hatter, a low level attack type. On a trip to Kiel, Dick Whittaker, his navigator, swore that when they were on their bombing run the searchlights on the Mole were pointing slightly down at them! Tom Bolton, Bill Crofts, and many others come to mind. They were all a great bunch of lads, and it was a privilege to serve with them. "I found a big difference in Bomber Command when I went back to it in 1943. By then the whole set-up was more scientific, more regimented, more dispassionate, and there was more tension and less humour. I know that, according to the experts, we were not very efficient in 1940, and spent our time bombing haystacks that had been lit as decoys; but in that case I have flown over some of the most heavily defended haystacks ever known. In 1940 there was almost an amateur air about the whole business, on both sides. The Germans were still broadcasting from known radio stations and before taking off on a bombing raid we were given German frequencies, call signs, and location of the station. In fact, when bombing Osnabruck, we homed on their radio transmitter. All of this information was typed on rice paper and we were told that if in danger of being captured we were to eat the paper. Eventually, the transmitters closed down. The theory, current in No. 214, was that the Germans had captured a navigator before he had eaten the paper, and whilst they didn't mind us knowing their call signs and frequencies, they were infuriated to find one of their beacons marked 'unreliable'. They took umbrage and refused to play any longer! "The Air Ministry was almost equally naяve. Generally speaking, we were given secondary targets, and usually these were specific; but fairly often we were given less well-defined objectives. The two most often designated were MOPA and SIMOR. The first was easy enough – Military Objectives Previously Attacked. SIMOR caused considerable amusement as it represented Self Illuminating Military Objectives in the Ruhr. In 1943 with the PFF, the briefing was elaborate and lengthy; but in 1940 we were given details of the target and told where and when to cross the English coast and that was about all. If we were going to Happy Valley (the Ruhr) we flew over the Scheldt estuary. To this day I could still draw a fairly accurate map of Overflakkee from memory. And if we were going north we chose a route over the Steinhuder Meer or the Dummer Zee. We avoided the Freisian Islands, best known as Flak Alley. Apart from dead-reckoning and map reading, we used astro-navigation, often flying along a parallel of latitude because it was easy to check the track from a Pole Star sight. One navigator, on the way back to Stradishall, could not see the ground, so he took a sextant shot on the Pole Star. It showed him, not just a minute (one nautical mile), but a degree (60 nautical miles), north of track. He decided to use dead-reckoning, tried again later and found himself apparently even further north. So he threw his sextant onto the bunk in disgust and landed up at Wick. I wasn't impressed with Pathfinder Force in 1943, as I did four trips with PFF and three of these were literally miles off target. "Earlier I mentioned that there was more humour in 1940. One of my duties was to check that the bombs were correctly loaded and connected up before take-off. I remember checking the bomb load on our aircraft, and seeing a 250 lb bomb on which had been painted, 'This might have been a leaflet.' "In September, 1940, the country was expecting the Germans to land in England at any time, and we received the Invasion Alert One. The alert lasted one weekend and provided, amongst other things, for the recall to their units of servicemen on leave. Notices were flashed on cinema screens, police patrolled with loudspeakers, and lorries collected all servicemen and took them back to base. We mustered on the tarmac near the hangar, sober at the front, not so sober at the rear. In fact there was a good deal of singing from the rear ranks, and cheers for a variety of people, beginning with the Wing Commander and going on to the SWO, and the SPs, ending with Der Fќhrer. Our instructions were that all aircraft, serviceable and unserviceable, were to be refuelled, armed, and bombed up. There was even talk of putting machine guns on the Tiger Moth, and light bombs on the Magister of Station Flight. As we moved off, an airman near me hiccupped, staggered, and said in a most aggrieved tone, 'Eight o'clock on a Saturday night! What the hell's Hitler up to? He must think there's a bloody war on!' It was also at a weekend, Sunday afternoon to be precise, when the Station was bombed. Many of the sergeants were on the grass outside the mess, when one looked up and said, 'There's a Blenheim.' Another said, 'Oh no it's not, it's a Junkers.' I have never seen men move so fast. There was not much damage done except to B Flight hangar. "There was a nice story going around after the raid. An officer had bought and paid for a new car and had sold, but not received the money for his old one. Both were destroyed in the raid. Thereafter, we were told, whenever there was an air raid warning, that officer was to be found patrolling the aerodrome, a look of fury in his eyes and a double-barrelled shotgun under his arm. "The Germans carried out a leaflet raid in the area whilst I was serving at Stradishall. They dropped leaflets with a photograph of Churchill holding a Thompson machine gun, and underneath it read, 'Wanted for Murder.' Although the police tried to collect them, they were soon selling for a bob, and some enterprising airmen took a number to London and sold them at half a crown! "We used Razzles on two occasions: the first was over Iserholm, in the Arnsberg-Autendorn area, the second over the Hartz Mountains. The Razzles were about six or seven inches square and a quarter inch thick. They were stored in large tins of methylated spirits and if allowed to get dry they would burst into flames. I think the basis was some sort of phosphorous compound. At all events, they worked. We tried one! The tins were stored on the bunk, and a hole was cut through the fabric of the aircraft, but not through the bomb doors. Our drill for dropping these devices was for the navigator to tell the pilot when the aircraft was over the target. The front gunner and the second pilot would then go back to the centre of the aircraft, while the pilot opened the bomb doors. Next, the gunner broke open the tins and the second pilot poured their contents, meths and all, out through the funnel. On the first occasion that we used them, the skipper asked how long before we would reach the target area. I replied, 'Five minutes.' Later I told the pilot we were over the target, so the skipper said, 'Right, I'm opening the bomb doors now. You can start pouring the Razzles out.' The second pilot said, 'I've already started.' The skipper said, 'When?' 'As soon as I got back,' answered the co-pilot. The skipper said, 'But the bomb doors were not open.' The second pilot replied, 'I forgot.' Following this disclosure, we decided to get rid of the Razzles as soon as possible, and zig-zagged over the area until they had gone. Once clear of the target I was sent back to check that none of the Razzles had been caught up in the bomb bays. From a perspex panel located forward in the Wimpy, you could look back along the bays, which I did, and found that three Razzles still remained. The pilot expressed himself forcibly on the subject of second pilots, then opened the bomb doors and threw the aircraft about in all directions. Two of the Razzles fell out but he could not dislodge the third, and we still had at least three hours flying time in front of us. We had been told that the Razzles would dry out and burst into flames within twenty minutes. In view of the possibility of an accident, the Elsan had been filled with water and a stirrup pump was stowed aboard. We used this pump every quarter of an hour or so until the water ran out, then threw the remains of our coffee at the blasted thing. Some bright spark suggested that we urinate on it. It was damned cold in a Wimpy at 12,000 feet, and we were flying through turbulence. Since there was an obvious risk of personal inconvenience, there were no volunteers! At last we made base. After landing, the pilot opened the bomb doors, the aircraft bounced, and the Razzle dropped clear onto the runway. Before we were off the perimeter the damn thing had caught fire. "I think it was at Stradishall that we had the SCI unit. SCI stood for Smoke Curtain Installation. In theory it was a method of putting an aerodrome out of action by using smoke gas. We were told that there would be an SCI test one afternoon, and that a Wimpy would fly back and forth over the airfield, releasing tear gas, and that all personnel in the vicinity should wear gas masks for the duration of the test. The Wimpy duly appeared and made its runs. Just after it had finished, a Tiger Moth landed on the aerodrome. The pilot was a Flight Commander who, for some reason, did not have his gas mask with him. He rushed up to the Flight Office, tears streaming down his face. He was wiping away the tears when the Adjutant appeared and coughed hesitantly. The Flight Commander remarked, 'Yes, I know it's my fault, I forgot my gas mask.' The Adjutant said, 'Yes, sir. The pilot of the SCI Wimpy has just phoned in to say that he is sorry but, due to a blockage in the gas tanks, no gas was released.' "The raid which I remember as well as any was over Cuxhaven. We were the only crew on that particular raid. The rest of the Squadron was heading off for the Ruhr. I remember it for two reasons. First of all, we started a large fire and it burned green. One of the debriefing officers said it was probably a petrol fire. The other reason was that we had a new intelligence officer debriefing us. He tried the old chestnut, 'Did you encounter flack?' 'Yes.' 'Was it accurate for direction?' 'Yes.' 'Where were you hit?' We had had that one before, so I smiled happily and gave him part of a fuse plug from an 88 mm shell, which had made a hole in my navigation table. He looked at it thoughtfully and said, 'Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that the German Naval School of Anti Aircraft Gunnery is based at Cuxhaven.' I thought, 'Now he tells us.' I had visions of German u/t sprogs rubbing their hands and saying, 'Good-oh, this is for real,' and some hardened old German Petty Officer pushing them out of the way and saying, 'Now just watch me and see how it's done.' "When I first joined the Squadron I was looking at the Squadron crest with its Nightjar motif and the motto, Ultor in Umbris . It will not surprise you to learn that when I asked about them I was told that the crest was a Shitehawk and the motto meant 'Deeper in the Shit'." Below are some memories of Pilot Officer, later Air Vice Marshal, I.D.N. Lawson, RAFVR, who served with No 214, based at Stradishall, Suffolk, from November 18, 1940 to March 12, 1941. "One must bear in mind that in the six months prior to my joining 214 we had lost the Battle for North Europe and France, had evacuated our forces from Dunkirk, fought and won the Battle of Britain which removed the threat of invasion, and our main cities were now being bombed at night. These attacks were, for that time, very heavy and concentrated, and, initially, few A-1 equipped night fighters were available for defence. At the same time, intruder raids on airfields, both by day and night, were being carried out by the Luftwaffe. All these events obviously had an effect on aircrew training, depending on where the schools were located. Further, the nation was having to reassess how it was to carry on the war, in the light of these events. The fact remains, however, that by the winter of 1940, Bomber Command was the only weapon that could strike directly at Germany itself. "The Station Commander at Stradishall was G/Cpt 'Bunny' Harris. After the usual arrival procedure, we all reported to the Squadron, where the CO, W/Cdr F.E. Nuttall, was on the point of leaving on a posting to 3 Group. Informed that we would be joining A Flight, I reported to the Flight Commander, S/Ldr B.F. Balsdon, nicknamed 'God'. I was told that my crew was to fly with P/O 'Shorty' Weatherley, who would be captain. I would be his second pilot for a few trips and then, as captain, take over another crew, probably fresh from OTU. This was a great blow, as my OTU crew and I had got to know each other very well at Bassingbourn and liked flying together, and none of us wanted to be split up. However, when we found that Weatherly had done six ops as second dickie, and even though his flying experience was not much more than mine, he had been on ops, as far as we were concerned, this made him the tops. "We did some local flying, a cross-country and some air firing, before collecting a new aircraft from Sealand. Then we did our first operation with Weatherley as captain. The target was Boulogne. At that time the makey-learn trip was always to a channel port. The Squadron's target that night was in the Ruhr and two crews did not come back. On our first op all went well. The flak was slight, or so I was told. This was eleven days after our arrival on the Squadron. Eight days later we operated against Dusseldorf, but the target was cloud covered so we bombed our alternative, which was Antwerp. From then until December 23, 1940, we only did two air tests, prior to operations which were planned but cancelled because of bad weather. "I was allowed leave for Christmas from December 24 to 26, and on the 27th the target was Lorient. The weather was good, and so was the flak. By month end it had turned very cold, with heavy snow, and this further affected operations. Stradishall was at that time the only airfield with runways in Bomber Command, so, as there were no specialist clearance vehicles or snow plough that I recall, we all set to and cleared the main runway and peri-track; aircrew, station staff, and whatever tradesmen could be spared. "On New Year's Day, 1941, and again on the following night, we went to Bremen in clear weather and a full moon. The target was attacked from about 10,000 feet, and by the standards of later AA defences, the ride was fairly easy. The height we flew just kept us out of effective range of the light stuff. Incidentally, 10,000 feet was about the maximum that the average Wellington IC could reach with a full fuel load and a full bomb load of nine 500 lb bombs. "At this stage of the war against Germany, there were very few night fighters, and as far as I am aware they were not fitted with AI equipment. We had no jamming equipment fitted, and incidentally, no air-to-ground RT. At night, circuit control was by Aldis lamp, and aircraft downward identification. "On January 15, 1941, Wilhelmshaven was the chosen target and this time the weather proved favourable. The search for our aiming point was consequently that much easier. According to later reports, this was a successful raid, carried out by a force of 96 bombers with the loss of only one Whitley. "It was now decided that I should be given a crew, if only because losses and postings made it necessary for pilots with experience (?!) to take over new crews arriving from OTU, so that the Squadron's strength in operating units could be maintained. My new crew, straight from OTU, was happy to learn I had some experience. As I had not done a take-off or landing at night since leaving OTU on May 8, 1940, we spent two nights doing circuits and bumps for my benefit. Then we went on our first op. It was a makey-learn to Boulogne on February 6, 1941. There was total cloud cover over the target so we returned with all our bombs on board. From January 16 right up to the time I did my first operation as captain the weather in East Anglia had been foggy and many a hair-raising experience was reported by the crews returning from operations. Many were lost, as landing aids were non-existent, although Standard Beam Approach was coming in. "I was very lucky to be sent off on an SBA course at No 5 BAT Flight at Honington. We flew whatever the weather, in Wellington aircraft, just the instructor and the pupil, and I was to bless my New Zealand Flying Officer instructor in the years ahead for all he taught me. It was the best fifteen hours flying I ever had, as it really gave me confidence in my own ability to fly on instruments, and make the aircraft do what it was told. On return to the Squadron it was not long before the newly acquired skill came into use. On February 23 our destination was Brest and we flew through cloud all the way to the target, although the base was clear on leaving. However, on return we found that both Southern and Eastern England were completely blanketed by fog. By using SBA I was able to sneak into Mildenhall, having located the airfield by beam. "At this stage of the war there were no satisfactory aids to navigation or target location. If the ground was cloud-covered or, as was often the case, one had to fly in cloud, navigation was much a matter of dead-reckoning. Apart from pinpoints on the coast and drifts obtained from sea markers by rear gunners, the navigator had little to help him on his way to the target. Also, there was no central target-marking organisation and, as far as I am aware, no great effort to concentrate the attacking force as a Command over the target. The return from the target meant QDM's to try to get a fix on crossing the enemy coast. "The ability of the W/T system to provide a service to navigators was limited. Aircraft fitted with the old GP set with its limited range and strength had to deal with a slow and laborious process. At this time the new Marconi set was just starting to be fitted to aircraft. If you were lucky enough to have one of these installed, your operator was able to blast his way through operators using the old GP set! I remember on quite a few occasions, looking back down the cabin, to see the W/T set in bits on the cabin floor, while the operator worked frantically to fix a snag. The authorities realised, only too well, in the winter of 1940/41, the lack of both satisfactory navigation aids available to the night bomber force, and adequate means of locating the target, particularly if inland and cloud covered. Industrial haze was an added problem. "Shortly after our arrival at Stradishall, W/Cdr Griffiths came from 3 Group to lecture to us on astro-navigation. Before long we were all out in the evenings, when not operating, being taught star recognition and how to use a bubble sextant. Furthermore, a start was being made to fit our aircraft with astrographs. This aid made the task of the navigator, to plot his shots on the Mercator chart, much easier. It made it quicker to obtain a fix in the event that other aids, like W/T and coast lines, were not available. We used to say, cynically, that the met man's briefing always forecast there would be 2/10ths cloud at the Dutch coast on the way out, and breaking up on the return journey! "Fortunately for me, my navigator was superb and my W/T operator could coax a QDM out of the ether most times, and even obtain a fix. With my SBA skill we sometimes used the beam as well, picking it up on the east coast. The beam was not always left on, as it was of course of use to the enemy intruders as well as to us. Nevertheless, we did use it, when possible, to get a homing to a fixed point in the UK, if we were not sure of our location on the homeward journey. Most of our returns were in this category, I'm afraid. "Our next two operations, to Dusseldorf and Wilhelmshaven, on February 25 and 28, illustrate the situation I have described. Both targets had 10/10th cloud cover as did the flights there and back. Bombs were dropped on ETA. But when we attacked Brest on March 2, the weather was good and we were able to make our bombing more effective. Brest being in a coastal position, there was no difficulty recognising our aiming point and identifying the target. "In addition to location and navigation, another major hazard was the weather we encountered that particular winter. There was no wing de-icing apart from paste on the leading edge of the wing, which didn't seem to be very effective. I cannot remember operating a Wellington with propeller de-icing, nor that we had windscreen wipers or de-icers. Certainly, for inexperienced crews the weather was a major worry and hazard, and one pre-flight check my co-pilot and I always made was the serviceability of the electrically heated pitot head. "Turning to other activities, one has to say that life on the base was fairly full. We had a couple of ENSA concerts while I was with the Squadron, and although petrol rationing was rather restrictive, by pooling all the transport in the Squadron we were able to get to Haverhill and Bury St Edmunds quite often, and Cambridge on a number of occasions. What with the blackout, the snow and the ice, the narrow lanes, and no sign posts, I sometimes wonder which was the more hazardous for the crew, going on ops or going for a drink! "One added complication to our lives as aircrew was that of German intruder operations, carried out by night and day during the late summer and early autumn of 1940. After one such raid on Stradishall, it was decided that the aircrew should be moved away from the base and accommodated elsewhere. Shortly after our arrival on 214, we were moved to a large house owned by Mr. Peck of Peck's Potted Meats. It was a magnificent house and as a pilot officer I shared the Blue Bedroom, including a blue bathroom, with one other officer, a flight lieutenant, my rear gunner. The image was spoiled somewhat as there were no carpets on the floor, just bare boards, service beds, bedside tables, collapsible chairs, and trestle tables. The dining room was oak panelled and the main sitting room had a really marvellous Adam fireplace. Despite this apparent air of luxury, the end result for the aircrew was, in fact, an inconvenient arrangement for such things as meals before ops, breakfast on return, etc., to say nothing of the travel to and fro, and waiting for transport on non-operational days. "When I visited Stradishall a few years ago, I found the park had been demolished, and of course the Station is no longer RAF property, having since been taken over by HM Prisons. "The situation, in North Africa (Western Desert) and the Central Eastern Mediterranean, was deteriorating and it was decided that the bomber force of Wellingtons in the Middle East should be augmented. My crew and I were selected to go on a temporary posting to Malta as part of a Middle East Flight which had been formed at Stradishall. After seven days leave, we departed for Malta on the night of March 15, 1941. Two other crews left at the same time. We were briefed to arrive midway between Cape Bon and Malta at first light, as it was known that the Germans were aware of these reinforcements, and Me 109s were operating in the area. Ten hours and fifteen minutes after departure from Stradishall, we landed at Luqa airfield, Malta, at the start of an air raid. Of the other two aircraft, one crashed in the Atlas mountains and the other was shot down. Thus ended our connection with No. 214 Squadron. My crew and I went on to complete a total of 50 operations together before we were split up." CЏ*;<{Їз#$њ+ <ЄвДМ ’#к%)]-а/д6|9Ц;щ<Ѕ?§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§CЏўЅ?ПC”I=NХPщTМY`)aЩfHhХiжtФxь|џ}И~/‚Р…ЃˆЈŠtŒЂЬŽz’Ы•=˜‘›KžY §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§Y Ђ;ЄPІ”ЊHЋ3Џ4Џ5Џ6Џ7Џ8Џ9Џ:Џ;Џ<Џ=Џ>Џ?Џ@ЏAЏBЏCЏ§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§# 0€Аа/ Ар=!Аp"А # $ %А [(@ёџ(NormalCJmH <A@ђџЁ<Default Paragraph FontCЋfџџџџ џџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџџ џџ џџ џџ џџ < і])s8RGМUHd‚sРŒrŸ;ЋCЋhЦsvыF}Bу ? 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