Battle Order 204 (1)
Bomb Doors Open!

‘Bomb doors open!’ It was the call that haunted airmen’s dreams.

Approaching the target, flying straight and level with its bomb doors open, the mighty Lancaster was at its most vulnerable. Likely to be ‘coned’ at any second by persistent enemy searchlights. Target for fierce anti-aircraft guns.

Prey for deadly fighters.

‘Bombs gone!’ the bomb aimer reported over the intercom, then ‘Bomb doors closed.’

‘Bomb doors closed,’ the pilot repeated.

But there was no respite from enemy attack.

The plane had to continue straight and level until the camera recording the bombing had stopped running. Then and only then could the pilot turn away and set the Lanc on the first leg of its hazardous homeward course. The crew, with the sick sour taste of fear in their mouths, the smell of cordite in their nostrils and the sight of shells exploding all around and aircraft going down in flames, kept watching, hoping, praying.

•••••••••••••••••

On the morning of 29 November 1944 David and his crew woke to find themselves on Battle Order No. 204. It was a daylight offensive, a Royal Air Force sortie of 294 Bomber Command Lancasters and 17 Mosquitoes heading for the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland, the dreaded Happy Valley, as it had been dubbed by the airmen. Today bomb doors would be opening over Dortmund.

David was a Lancaster pilot and this was his twenty-third operation in ten weeks. Only seven more journeys into hell after this one and he would have completed his first tour of duty.

Then, thank God, he would be due for leave.