A week of frustration followed. All flying was scrubbed because of the weather. No operations were mounted and training exercises had to be abandoned. With the rain the station had become a quagmire and any aircraft which taxied off the perimeter track would have been instantly bogged. So except for a stint of air-to-air firing along the coast, when Boz managed to shoot away an aerial, David continued to spend many hours in the intelligence library, avidly following the course of the invasion across France and the Low Countries, studying reports and photos of air strikes, absorbing as much as he could.
On the fourth day they stood by, tensely waiting for the announcement over the Tannoy public address system, ‘Run up aircraft’, which usually indicated an op was imminent. It did not come. On the seventh day the call came. But the op did not eventuate, although the aircraft were already bombed up. B Baker had been sent away for engine modification and David and his crew had yet another plane, J Jig, which they were delighted had been allocated to them as their own. David wrote with satisfaction, Flying is easier for the crew when they are used to one particular aircraft.
The next day’s call meant business. Serious business. A night operation, which made some of the crew ‘feel funny in the tum’. The target was Saarbrücken, a town in Germany that the RAF had rarely attacked, so little was known about its defences. The American Third Army, which was advancing in the area, had requested the raid on the railway marshalling yards in order to block German supply routes. Five hundred and thirty-one Lancs and twenty Mosquitoes were to take part. On hearing this, Drew admitted to ‘ring twitter’. When the Met Officer told them that the route was designed to take them under low cloud over France, David felt concerned, as he foresaw the high risk of collisions with a great number of aircraft in restricted airspace.
For the first time their load included a ‘cookie’ and twelve 500-pound incendiary clusters. The cookie was a massive 4000-pound bomb in a special light casing designed to maximise its blast. The incendiary clusters, dropped after it, should raise a firestorm, as they had done so spectacularly in Hamburg the previous year. At 1000 feet over France all the crew kept an extra sharp watch and David left on the dim resin lights, designed for formation keeping, to minimise the danger of collision. They were relieved to be able to climb to the briefed height of 15 000 feet as soon as they passed the cold front. But when Drew asked for the bomb doors to be opened several minutes too soon, everyone became jittery. With the doors open, the plane was much less manoeuvrable and had to keep a straight and level course, making it more vulnerable. With flak coming up all around, the crew were very jumpy by the time Drew pressed the tit. And at least some said a silent ‘Thank you, God,’ as David closed the bomb doors and they turned away. It was another useful lesson. He wrote, The doors certainly will not be opened too early in the future… All these incidents are helping to weld the crew into a fine composite fighting unit.
Drew was apologetic, ‘What a boob! I won’t do that again, chaps!’
But another unpleasant experience and test of nerves awaited them on their return journey. Nearing the East Anglian coast, Pop passed on a message he had decoded. The squadron had been diverted to Coltishall, a fighter base near Norwich. There they were ‘stacked’ up to 4 000 feet, orbiting for one hour and seventeen minutes while other Lancs and Mossies were brought in. With the air full of kites flying in and out of clouds and heavy rain, it was a living nightmare. They were hugely relieved when their call to land came. After a smooth touch down, Jig started jarring and jumping and David thought a tyre must have blown. But it was the steel-mesh landing strip for fighters which was buckling under the weight of the heavy aircraft.
After a brief interrogation they were given a meal of snags and spuds. Drew was irked when he and Pop were taken to sleep in a ground crews’ hut, while ‘the kids’ slept between sheets in officers’ beds! David and Murga had to make do with armchairs in the Mess. David wrote afterwards, It was not too bad.
They spent the next morning with pilots of an Australian Spitfire squadron, watching with admiration as one made an almost perfect belly landing. They also had their first view of a Tempest, and looked over Mustangs and Mosquitoes.
After Jig had been refuelled by two of the wickedest WAAFs Drew had ever seen, they flew back to Kelstern, where they shared their reactions on the trip.
‘Had the shits good and proper over the target area,’ Birdy said. ‘I kept checking to make sure I could get out of the turret if necessary.’
Cyril admitted, ‘I also nearly needed a clean pair of pants.’
‘I had a slight attack of ring twitters,’ Boz said, ‘and at times the aerial insulators gave me mild heart attacks when I thought they were enemy fighters.’
‘I was not the happiest little Australian in the world,’ Drew confessed.
And they all concurred with Pop’s verdict, ‘It was a weary journey. Six hours and 50 minutes. And then we didn’t even get home.’
All their squadron returned safely, but three Lancasters of the force were lost.
GERMANY AGAIN
Early next morning there was quite a flap when a Tannoy announcement called crews on the Battle Order for briefing at 9.30. They were on it. It was a daylight raid on Emmerich, northwest of the Ruhr, to wipe out a German supply base and communications centre, thus protecting an exposed flank of the Allied army on the Rhine. It was a major operation. Other Rhineland towns were to be attacked simultaneously by other waves.
On the preliminary run-up, Jig was found to have a malfunctioning radiator shutter. Watched by the Wingco, Chief Technical Officer and the Engineering Officer, the erks, as the ground crew were known, worked hard on the replacement, which also proved useless. By then both aircrew and ground crew were in a sweat. Would they get off in time? Finally all was in order and Jig was airborne half a minute before the deadline. By good navigation on Murga’s part they caught up with the stream at the concentration point. A group of Halifaxes diverged to another target and David wondered if Peter was among them. The main body of 340 Lancs and ten Mossies carried on across Holland, where widespread flooding caused by the Germans was plainly visible. How much this war had cost the Dutch!
Approaching the target at 11 000 feet was awkward, as both heavy and light flak, the most severe they had yet encountered, were having a deadly effect. Shrapnel was thumping on J Jig, and another Lanc went down in flames only 50 yards away - a gut-wrenching, heartrending sight.
They dropped their cookie and twelve incendiary clusters, and even at 11 000 feet they could feel the cookies exploding. They were relieved to turn away, only to see two more aircraft ahead in trouble, with smoke pouring from their engines. Their crews baled out successfully and Jig’s crew were able to plot the approximate position where those crews would land. In all they saw 24 chutes in the air at once. ‘Better to be POWs than incinerated,’ they thought. But they knew that the four pilots probably had not got out.
When they were circling over base to land, Drew was irate when ‘some whining sod wanted everything cleared out of his way ‘cos he had to land on three engines with incendiaries in his wing.’ Flying Control wanted him to keep his place in the queue, but David thought it was a valid request and deliberately overshot the runway, as did the pilot behind. So this bod, who happened to be a Squadron Leader, was able to land his aircraft, damaged by incendiaries dropped from a friendly plane flying above it.
The kids ribbed Dave, the perfect gentleman, about it and he lost his temper a bit. ‘There, but for the grace of God…,’ he reminded them. ‘We may need to do the same some time.’
At interrogation, as well as details about the target, David and his crew were able to give information about the men who had baled out. The Groupie seemed favourably impressed. So the men were chuffed. Cyril had found the op ‘very exciting’. Birdy was ‘too interested to be frightened’. Boz felt ‘very confident, like a sightseer’. But for Pop, who ‘had nothing to do over the target except watch and pray, the intensity of the AA defences resulted in great twitter’. David, as usual, kept his own counsel.
Next day when the press described it as the biggest assault of the war, with 3000 heavy bombers over the Reich, including 1400 US Fortresses and Liberators, 900 RAF heavies and an escort of 1500 fighters, David went to the nearby town of Louth to church. The beautiful spire of St James’, built in the fifteenth century, had been a landmark to comfort him for almost a month now. As had the splendid towers of even older Lincoln Cathedral. And he was deeply thankful for them. He was saddened, too, for the French and Dutch and German churches which had been destroyed by Allied bombing. How much longer would this horrific war, with its hideous destruction of people and beautiful historic buildings, go on? When would it end?
As he sat quietly after the service, gazing up at the centuries-old spacious arches and the lofty vaulted ceiling, David knew he must not let himself dwell on the thought of people maimed and killed, of minds filled with horrendous images and memories, of homes reduced to pitiful rubble and gracious public buildings to smouldering ruins. He must think of them only as targets. Targets which, if not destroyed would allow the Nazi war machine to continue to perpetrate its own devastation, its enslavement of free peoples, its evil values and lust for cruel dominance. As for those crews shot down, missing, lost, dead, whether allied or enemy, they were doing their job, serving their country. ‘Let them rest in peace, Lord,’ he prayed, ‘and let the memory of them stay bright in the minds and hearts of those who loved them, and whom they loved.’