Despite the forecast winds, those actually found differed considerably. Once over the Dutch coast the winds veered sharply to the north between the Dutch and German borders and over Berlin. Most crews failed to notice this change and based their flight calculations on a southerly instead of northerly wind and were blown many miles south of track, consequently arriving late at the target. Some ‘Y’ aircraft (H2S) found their own winds from their H2S fixes on route, but those differed so much from those forecast that the latter was used in preference. Few of the blind markers successfully identified the starting point for their DR runs, while others, attempting to map read on H2S, probably mistook the towns of Gen thin-Brandenburg-Potsdam, for the parallel series, Stendal-Rathenow-Nauen, thus coming into the target on a track fifteen miles south of that which was intended. Many made an attempt on a DR run but tried to home directly on the built-up area of Berlin. As a result of these errors in navigation the Red TIs were scattered. The winds in fact experienced were 50 mph over bases, 20-30 mph over Berlin.
The aircraft were spread over a period of seventeen minutes. The red TIs, while scattered, made a resemblance of a concentration five to eight miles south-east of the aiming point which was then backed up by green TIs. These attracted about two-thirds of the Main Force aircraft and a moderately concentrated attack developed over an area of fifteen square miles, centred seven miles SSE of the AP on outlying suburbs. The remaining one-third of the Force was probably scattered over a wide area, but ground sources indicated that the raid completely disorganised the administrative machinery in the city.
At Nauen the Germans had the largest decoy fire site in the Berlin region. It was fifteen miles west of the city and extended for nine miles. Decoy TIs were dropped into the decoy fire site which then attracted the searchlights and flak guns, which took some of the heat off the bombers over Berlin. The ground defences at the beginning of the attack consisted of heavy flak fired in loose barrage up to 22,000 feet, around the marker flares, and was predicted at ‘seen’ targets through gaps in the cloud. A continuous belt of searchlights were reported between Hannover and Emden and flak was encountered from these towns as well as from Bremen, Münster, Magdeburg, Osnabrück, Texel and Amsterdam.
Fighters were almost entirely confined to the target area and the last part of the outward journey beyond Hannover — Ju88s predominated. Many illuminated targets were provided for the fighters over the capital. Corona was warning fighters of fog and telling them to land, which angered the German fighter commentators greatly. Four enemy fighters were claimed as destroyed in the air battles, two Ju88s by 1 Group aircraft, while 5 Group claimed a FW190 and a Me 109.
One Lancaster (DS707 ‘P’) of 426 Squadron, flown by Flight Sergeant Colombe, was attacked by a Ju88 at 19,000 feet and the corkscrew order given by the mid-upper gunner, Sergeant MacKenzie, with which the fighter broke away. Two more attacks were spotted by the observant MacKenzie, followed by two more. On the last attack, MacKenzie saw his bullets richochet off the belly of the Junkers and it was last seen in a steep dive.
The Lancaster had been damaged in the attack, with wings, engines and hydraulics all hit and the R/T was knocked out. The rear gunner, Flight Sergeant Jankun, had been blinded by a blue master searchlight. During the attacks a Me 109 was seen sitting off at 1,000 yards dropping white fighter flares. Despite their damage they got home safely. Flight Sergeant Colombe was soon commissioned after this action and received the DFC.
While returning from Berlin, Flying Officer Wales, in a Lancaster (DS251 ‘D’) of 432 RCAF Squadron, encountered an unidentified four-engined aircraft which was first spotted by the rear gunner, Sergeant Dickinson. It was flying astern and slightly below them. Dickinson instructed the pilot to corkscrew at which time the other aircraft opened up with a long burst of cannon and machine gun fire from a range of 600 yards. Dickinson returned the fire with interest. The Lancaster was hit on the side of its fuselage, severing the pressure line and rendering the mid-upper turret U/S.
The unidentified aircraft followed two diving turns, opening fire at the start of each. On the third turn the mid-upper, Flight Lieutenant Ramville, instructed the pilot to alter course to port as the aircraft was closing in from that quarter, but it was not seen again.
Some five minutes later a searchlight found them and fighter flares were dropped close to them. Shortly afterwards an enemy fighter was sighted by the rear gunner and corkscrewing began again, but thankfully they lost it quickly. The bomber was severely damaged and on landing the Lancaster overshot the runway as its hydraulics were gone, and ended up in a field at Eastmoor.
An aircraft of 50 Squadron was also involved in combats with fighters. Flown by Pilot Officer Lundy, P-Peter tangled with a Ju88 and the rear gunner ordered a corkscrew as he opened fire. The fighter returned the fire and then both rear and mid-upper gunners exchanged gunfire with the attacker. On the second pass by the Ju88 it made an attack from the starboard quarter, closed to 250 yards, pulled up into an apparent stall dead astern, which gave the gunners a belly shot at it. The 88 dropped out of sight, seemingly out of control and was claimed as probably destroyed.
For Pilot Officer Garth Hughes, an Australian in 514 Squadron, flying a Lancaster (DS783 ‘B’), the night of 2/3rd December was probably the one he would remember for the rest of his life. At 8.30 pm flying at a height of 20,000 feet he had just completed his bombing run when he was attacked by a Me210. Its one and only burst of fire killed his rear gunner (Sergeant Wilson) and put the mid-upper turret out of action, as well as setting fire to the fuselage and bomb racks, and lasted for about 30 seconds. The mid-upper, Sergeant Moorhouse, had his clothing set alight, which compelled him to leave his turret. The fighter made a second attack, but Hughes made an effective corkscrew to starboard on instruction from the WOP, who was keeping watch in the astrodome, and lost the fighter.
Attempts were made to extricate the dead rear gunner, but the turret was jammed with the guns pointing to starboard. About five minutes later a Ju88 was reported to be diving from the starboard side. Its fire hit the port inner engine and it had to be feathered, as well as smashing the hydraulics that controlled the bomb doors which dropped open. Ten minutes later the boost pressure on the outer starboard engine fell to minus four pounds per square inch. The aircraft became difficult to control but Hughes brought the damaged bomber back home where he executed a magnificent landing with a flat port tyre. He received an immediate DFC.
Fighters were not the only problems. Flight Sergeant Elmer Trotter, a Canadian flying a Lancaster of 101 Squadron on his fourth operational sortie; three of them had been to Berlin. The Lanc was hit by AA fire after releasing its bombs and thrown completely out of control and into a dive. Trotter ordered the crew to put on their parachutes while he struggled to regain control. With great skill he managed to do this, only to find he had scarcely any aileron control and no trimmers. His starboard main plane had been shot to pieces aft of the rear spa and there were three large holes inboard, between the two starboard engines. To add to this, his mid-upper turret and compass were U/S.
His troubles were not over. As he left the target and tried to gain height, they were attacked by a fighter which Trotter evaded, though not before the port outer engine was damaged. On their way back to base they again ran into flak but avoided being hit and eventually made a safe landing. He too received an immediate DFC.
During the initial bombing run, Warrant Officer Edward Ellis of 625 Squadron, who was initiating a new crew on their first operation, had his aircraft hit in the rear turret, wounding the gunner, Sergeant D. Wightman, and knocking out his turret. The bomb run was continued, and bombs released in a long stick on target, but as they went down a fighter attacked from below, raking the aircraft from stem to stern. The rear gunner was wounded again as well as the mid-upper, Sergeant W. Jones. Still Ellis carried on the run, the delay between the HEs and the incendiary bombs being carefully timed as briefed, despite another pass by the fighter. Only then did Ellis take evasive action.
After leaving the target the crew took stock of the damage. The intercom was not working, the bomb doors would not close, the gun turrets were U/S and the mainplane and fuselage damaged. The hydraulics were U/S and, as they discovered later, the main wheel tyres were punctured. The oxygen began to run short so height was lost on the return journey. Just before crossing the Dutch coast the aircraft was again hit by flak. As fuel was also running low a landing was made at RAF Bardney, using the emergency method of lowering the undercarriage. Without flaps and with flat tyres, the aircraft nosed over on landing but then tipped back again. The crew were uninjured in the landing, but both wounded gunners were taken off to hospital. For his actions and cool courage, Ellis received the CGM — Conspicuous Gallantry Medal — the rarest award in the RAF for operational flying.
Flight Lieutenant Riches of 97 Squadron flying Lancaster JA85 7 ‘G’ was hit by heavy flak and was knocked out, but managed to come to and pull the aircraft out of a vertical dive.
Not all the aircrew who were shot down on this night, or who were reported missing, were killed; there were quite a few who were made prisoners. One was Sergeant Owen Roberts who was flying in a Lancaster (JB372) of 49 Squadron, as mid-upper gunner. The rear gunner reported to the pilot, Warrant Officer R.W. Petty, when they were about halfway to Berlin, that his rear guns had gone U/S, but Petty decided to press on. Within sight of Berlin they were attacked by a Me110 from the starboard quarter. Sergeant Roberts waited until it was in range, then opened fire. The fighter then opened up, Roberts continuing his fire although one of his guns then jammed, and the 110 broke away with one engine on fire.
They returned to their bombing run and the bomb aimer lined the aircraft up on the markets, when Roberts spotted another 110 about 50 feet below. He aimed and fired, or attempted to fire, as his second gun ran out of ammunition. The bomb aimer was now concentrating on the bomb run, then they were gone and he began to count the seconds before he took the bombing photograph — always the worst part of an attack, the pilot having to keep straight and level over the heart of a target. His count got to seven when they were hit by flak and the starboard inner burst into flames, and within moments, Petty gave the order to bale out.
Sergeant Roberts grabbed his parachute and made his way to the rear door, where the rear gunner was already waiting. He opened the door and baled out over the centre of Berlin right into the flak, fires, bombs and bomber stream, fully expecting a stream of machine gun bullets to come up the beam to met him, but it didn’t.
When he reached the ground he landed in a tree and injured himself dropping 40 feet to the ground. It was freezing, with snow on the ground. He lay here for sixteen hours before a German civilian, who himself had been a POW in the first war, found him. He was sympathetic to his plight and called the army. Roberts was taken to the Hermann Göring Luftwaffe Hospital where he was given medical treatment and treated well by the staff. He was still there when the next Berlin raid came on 16th December and a German warrant officer took great delight in reminding him that the boot was now on the other foot!
Meanwhile, other aircraft were meeting problems in the Berlin sky. The Navigation Officer of 514 Squadron, Flying Officer Emery, flying in a Lancaster (DS738 ‘J’) was also shot down by a fighter. Having lost their port outer engine they had to bale out, to become the first POWs from 514 Squadron, and so were subjected to many questions at the Dulag Luft Interrogation Centre. Here Emery was taken into a room on which the walls were covered with his own navigation charts and maps, all showing some partial burning.
The trip for a crew of 35 Squadron was, in the words of Flight Sergeant McDougall ‘a fiasco and should have been cancelled.’ Due to the Met conditions several aircraft had been taken off the rota and so the number of squadron aircraft was considerably less than first planned. However, his pilot, Lieutenant Hoverstad, a Norwegian, was detailed to mark the target, so they were not stood down. Their Halifax (HX167 ‘C’) had a Zeiss JKN Camera on a special stand mounted in front of the H2S set with which to certify the aiming point. On the way to Berlin they were hit by flak near Osnabruck. The bomb doors jammed, preventing the release or even the jettisoning of the bombs and markers. The aircraft was now on fire and Hoverstad gave the order to bale out. Everyone managed to get away except the Norwegian, who was killed when the aircraft crashed. He was one of two Norwegians in 35 Squadron at this time; the other was his engineer, Flight Sergeant Arne Storme. He and the others were all taken prisoner, remaining so until their release by the Russians in 1945.
John McDougall had an eventful war. He was shot down on his twentieth operation, having been with 76 Squadron, where he had been wounded in the chest after tangling with a night fighter in June 1943.
On this night of 2nd December, the task of 627 Squadron, flying Mosquitos, was to bomb Berlin after the Main Force, to add more disruption in the German capital. These nuisance raids were usually made after the ‘all clear’ had been sounded. Six Mossies were sent on this occasion to undertake this task, one of which was DX479, flown by Flight Sergeant L. Simpson and his navigator, Sergeant Peter Walker. One hundred miles west of Berlin they were hit by flak but continued on their way to the target on one engine and minus their navigational aids. On the return journey Walker could not obtain any pin-points to help his navigation so they continued flying until their petrol ran out, then baled out, landing near La Beny Bocage. After some months of being passed from one escape organisation to another, Sergeant Walker finally reached Berne, Switzerland, in February 1944. He finally escaped into southern France, joined up with the Maquis, and later still American troops. He arrived back at his squadron in September 1944.
By the end of November 1943, war correspondents were becoming more interested in the Berlin raids and asked permission to be allowed to go on actual raids to the German capital. Permission was given by Harris to fly on the next raid. They were Captain Nordhal Greig, Mr Norman Stockton, of the Australian Associated News, and Ed Morrow of the American News, and another American named Lowell Bennett. Greig flew with an Australian, Flying Officer A. Mitchell, Stockton with Pilot Officer James English, another Australian — both of 460 Squadron at Binbrook. Ed Morrow flew with Wing Commander Jock Abercrombie while Bennett went with Flight Lieutenant Ian Bolton, a Scot — both pilots with 50 Squadron.
Abercrombie’s aircraft was coned over Berlin, but a dive shook them off. Later Morrow recorded: ‘The incendiaries were going down like a fist full of rice on black velvet, and the cookies were burning below like sunflowers.’ When over the target Morrow saw another Lancaster whip straight under their aircraft. ‘Berlin was like an orchestral Hell,’ he continued, ‘a terrible symphony of light and flares. An unpleasant form of warfare, but to the men, just a job.’
Ian Bolton took off from Skellingthorpe at 5.45 pm. On route they were attacked by two fighters and his aircraft set on fire and he ordered everyone out. Both he and Lowell Bennett were taken prisoner and ended up at Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, where they remained until May 1945, when they were liberated by Russian troops. Some while after they were taken prisoner a message came to the Daily Express Office, which read: ‘Inside Nazi Europe’, by Bennett. How it was transmitted is not known, but in the Express, for whom Bennett worked, there appeared an article under the title of ‘I was in a Lancaster’. He reported that as they approached Berlin an enemy fighter was seen climbing towards them from the right. The pilot swung the heavily laden bomber first one way then the other, but in a tightly packed stream of bombers the night fighter could hardly miss them. The world seemed to burst into an inferno of flames as cannon shells ripped into the two starboard engines which burst into flames. After feathering was to no avail, Bolton called, ‘Okay, boys, bale out, Sorry.’ As they put on their parachutes, Bolton said again, ‘Hurry up, boys — can’t hold it much longer.’ As Lowell Bennett floated down in his ’chute, he recalled shouting to himself, ‘You wanted a big story, well here it is!’ When he hit the ground, he sank waist deep into a muddy river bank and struggle as he might he could not get free. As panic set in he yelled to himself, ‘Your wife and baby are waiting, fight to get out of this.’ Then two men appeared in a rowing boat and helped him out. Later taken to a camp near Berlin, he met up with Bolton, and Sergeant McCall the wireless operator. Bolton later received the DFC, having flown 25 ops, including three on Hamburg.
Out of 458 aircraft despatched, 361 (78.896) attacked the primary target while 14 (3.1%) attacked alternative targets. Thirty-one aircraft had to abort because of technical defects or other problems. Another six returned because of icing, four by crew sickness and two late in taking-off — total 43 (9.4%).
The casualties were 40 aircraft missing (8.7%) and 79 damaged (53 to flak and eight to fighters, three to both flak and fighters and fifteen to non-enemy action). 1,685.6 tons of bombs were dropped which averaged 5,652 pounds for each Halifax attacking, 9,889 pounds for each Lancaster.
The old enemy, the unexpected force of the wind, caused aircraft to stray from the route allotted. Cloud gaps over the target enabled searchlights to illuminate the bombers and enemy fighters were in action over the target area as soon as the attack began. For their part, the Luftwaffe lost just three aircraft.
Following the raid, all attempts to photograph Berlin by 542 PRU Squadron, were thwarted by cloud, but reports from reliable sources on the four raids prior to this latest one indicated that most of the attacks had hit the central, western and north-western districts of the city. All embassies and legations with the exception of the Spanish, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Home Office, Propaganda Ministry and several other Government Departments, were either damaged or had been destroyed. Potsdam Station was burnt out and five other stations damaged. In addition electricity and gas had been cut off.
The London Times Newspaper reported on the 4th, that 1,500 tons of bombs had fallen on Berlin in 30 minutes and that 41 aircraft were missing, including the ones in which Norman Stockton and Lowell Bennett had been flying.
The German reports of the raid makes interesting reading. They noted that the raid commenced at 9.21 pm, although the alarm sirens began to wail at 7.27. The raid was made by some 150 to 200 bombers, which dropped 30 mines, 200 HE and 20,000 incendiary bombs, 2,000 phosphorus bombs plus 50 flares. 107 people had died, 201 injured and 826 missing, from this and the two previous raids.
The Sixth Raid
There was a gap of nearly two weeks before Harris mounted the next raid on Berlin, which came on 16/17 th December. He sent 418 Lancasters and nine Mosquitos on a blind bombing attack through 10/10ths cloud.
The weather forecast for this night was for the cloud to break up near the hostile coast, becoming patchy over the continent but then much low cloud over southern Berlin. The weather the flyers actually found was 10/10th cloud over Berlin with tops at 3–4,000 feet but good visibility above. The wind averaged 15 mph.
Five Mosquitos attacked the target before the Main Force arrived, and four attacked at five minute intervals after the raid. The target was marked by Wanganui flares and red and green TIs. Even before briefing, the target could often be guessed at by the crews when they found out the amount of petrol being put in the aircraft. 1,250 gallons for a Ruhr trip, or 1,750 for Berlin. With the briefings concluded and the other rituals over, the men climbed aboard their four-engined bombers for the Big City — for some it was their fifth trip there in a row.
On take-off the cloud was solid from 2,000 to 18,000 feet, so the crews were hoping the cloud would be too full for icing conditions or for fighters to climb through or for even searchlights to pierce.
The outward route crossed the Dutch coast at Ijmuiden and apart from a slight right hand turn after Stendal, it led directly to the target. An unusual amount of fighter opposition was met on the way resulting in at least eighteen encounters, including seven attacks. The route of the bombers was accurately plotted by the running commentator, who ordered fighters to Osnabruck by 6.10 pm and then to Oldenburg at 6.40, then to Hanover at 7.14.