15 ‘Bold, cautious, true,
    and my loving
   comrade’

Life on the squadron had to be lived from hour to hour, minute to minute, as the weather and its vagaries played such a crucial part in determining operations. The morning after their evening at the King’s Head, the crew heard that the op which had been cancelled at the last minute was now on as a daylight raid. ‘Let’s hope it is. Let’s get it over,’ they said. No one liked going to Happy Valley. And this was a return visit to Essen, with a Master Bomber, to pound what was left of the Krupps armament works.

They were not pleased either to find that their Jig had been allocated to another crew with a Canadian pilot, but consoled themselves that she would be in good hands, when David assured them ‘Arthur’s a gen pilot.’

Cologne Cathedral standing amidst ruins of buildings, and the Hohenzollern railway bridge across the Rhine

‘They’re all decent chaps,’ Drew added.

Although they were really sorry not to be flying in Jig, they were chuffed that they had been given a new aircraft, R Roger, to take on its first op. But over France they were shocked to notice a smell of burning and to see blue smoke starting to fill the cabin. The Gee had fused. So Cyril disconnected it. Nearing Essen they noticed the wavering almost vertical trail of a V2 rocket, far above their own cruising height of 20 000 feet. ‘Let’s hope it gets iced up too.’

Over the target, heavy and accurate flak shook the aircraft badly several times. When Boz reported a two-foot hole in the port elevator, David took even more care than usual with the elevator controls. Although the outside of the windscreen had been sprayed with glycol anti-freeze, he had trouble with damp air freezing on the interior. Icing had reduced vision uncomfortably, and as Gee was u/s, he was pleased with Drew’s and Pop’s teamwork on radar, using Y to bring them home.

Fog was the final hazard, but before it closed in totally they managed to land at Kelstern. On investigating the damage to Roger, they found that the main elevator spar and hinge had been almost completely severed, only held in place by half an inch of metal. ‘Another in the Lucky Stars series! Half an inch between life and death!’ David joked, secretly shocked to see how near to fatality they had been. R Roger had had its baptism of fire. Ground crew went into action at once to repair the damage.

COLOGNE

The following day they flew another new aircraft, ferrying it from Binbrook to Kelstern. But again fog was so thick they were not able to land at Kelstern. Returning to Binbrook, they made several attempts before they put down. Then, for the second time in four days, an op was cancelled after briefing just as they were boarding transports out to dispersals, much to the crews’ frustration.

Also of great strategic importance, it was rescheduled, too, as a daylight raid. The target was Cologne with its railway marshalling yards, power stations and harbour installations on the Rhine.

David, who had resolutely buried his grief deep in order to concentrate on the work he had to do, wrote, The inhabitants must be a little fed up with the raids by now, and exulted, We feel we are settling old scores for London and other British towns. It is also one in the eye for Goering who said that not one British bomb would fall on German soil.

Ironically they were flying L Love.

As they neared the target in the first wave, flak was accurate and Cyril windowed furiously to try to jam enemy radar. Brown smoke was billowing out in huge clouds from a large explosion, indicating something vital had been hit.

‘That’s blasted the shit out of them,’ Drew said with satisfaction.

But Pop murmured, ‘Poor bloody civilians.’

After they turned away Cyril dropped ‘nickels’, the British propaganda leaflets designed to warn German citizens of ultimate Allied victory, in the hope of undermining their faith in their leaders and encouraging a grassroots movement towards surrender.

Home again almost five hours later, David was relieved to see that two of his English friends, jovial Jack Ball, who had taken over R Roger, and Clem Koder, whose impeccable English gave no hint of his Czech parents, had returned safely. As for David himself, this had been his fifteenth op. He was half way to completing his tour. Another fifteen ops to go. He must focus on each sortie as it came up, each one another nail in Hitler’s coffin, each one a day nearer to victory and peace, in Europe at least. So he worked hard to maintain his crew’s morale.

When he received news that another good mate, Tas Williams, with whom he had trained and who was on the same squadron as Peter, had been killed only nine days after Peter, it was almost too much to bear. Tas had already had one close call over Germany. This time it was final.

Quiet, gentle Tas. Only 21. ‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.’

‘I won’t forget you, Tas,’ David promised. He re-read Tas’s last letter. Tas mentioned another lad from Hobart who had gone for a burton and that his own brother was now a POW in Japanese hands. Two more Tasmanian homes plunged into mourning and anguish. How much longer until this madness was over? The war in the Pacific, where David’s brother Max was serving as captain of a patrol boat, was not so close to its end.

HOLLAND YET AGAIN

David’s crew was now rated as an A category bombing team and chosen as one of six from the squadron to take part in the next tactical op the following day. In yet another aircraft, D2 Dog Two, they flew in a force of 358 aircraft, 194 of them Lancasters, led by a Master Bomber. A pinpoint target, demanding great accuracy, it was the last battery of the long­ range German guns on Walcheren Island. Commanding the Scheldt estuary, the guns were impeding full and effective use of port facilities at Antwerp to supply the Allied forces now advancing on Germany. When the target indicator fell in the water, the instruction was given to overshoot it by three seconds. Bombing had just commenced when they saw a Lanc going down with smoke pouring from it.

‘The Master Bomber’s got the chop,’ they groaned.

His deputy, in another aircraft, took over and kept the force orbiting. But drifting clouds obscured the target and they groaned again as they heard him repeat, ‘Sugarplum, Sugarplum,’ the code word for Abandon Mission.

Dodging through clouds and rainstorms they flew back at 200 feet across East Anglian airfields, where ground crews stopped work and people rushed out of their houses to stare up at 25 heavy bombers at such a low altitude.

Landing with a full bomb load in driving rain and poor visibility was no picnic.

‘I had butterflies in the tum,’ Boz admitted.

‘Emperor gum moths more like it,’ Birdy corrected him.

David simply wrote, After interrogation we were glad to reach the cheerful fire in the mess and sit listening to the rain.

Everyone was relieved when the decision was announced it would be counted as an op. Only fourteen more to go now, David told himself.

COLOGNE AGAIN

On 30 October David and his crew found their names on the Battle Order for the third day in a row. Battle Order 187. This time it was to Cologne again, for another massive raid on the railway marshalling yards. Back in Jig, their load a cookie, seven 1000-pounders and four 500s, they were airborne just as darkness was seeping over the ground. Flying between two layers of cloud, they experienced considerable icing on the leading surfaces and edges, and were glad to run in over the target and lay their eggs. When the upper layer thinned out they could see numbers of suspicious contrails circling above and all kept a close watch for fighters. A JU88 cut across their bows, but was gone before Drew could fire a shot. Then in his panic he mistook a friendly aircraft for an enemy fighter, his false alarm causing bags of flap.

When Birdy sighted two ‘jetties’ heading for them on either quarter, David smartly increased revs and put the nose down into the shelter of a nearby cloud bank. The full moon was illuminating everything too well for comfort. He wrote: We felt distinctly naked either silhouetted against it or lit up by searchlights against the cloud.

A warning of intruders over England heightened the tension and David wrote: We did not feel fully safe until our feet were on the ground again.

The whole operation had been completed without the loss of a single one of the 905 aircraft, and after these knock-out raids little remained standing in Cologne except its cathedral.

It was 4 am before they got to bed, peeved because they were due to go on leave that morning. Leave was due only after six weeks of ops, and they resented missing even half a day. By sleeping in they were late arriving in London and had difficulty finding accommodation. C’est la guerre, David wrote in resignation.

He spent next morning at RAAF HQ, seeking more information about cousin Frank and Peter, devastated to learn that Peter, like Frank, had been on his first op. In a Halifax on a raid to Sterkrade in Germany he had been second dickey to an experienced pilot on his 29th, so he could not have been in better hands. It just went to show the hazards they had to contend with and the diabolical effect of flak. As for Frank, the casualty section could tell him nothing more and did not hold out much hope for him.

Lunch at the Boomerang Club was more cheerful and he heard that Ian was still enjoying the warmth of the Middle East, where Gordon was finding interest in identifying Biblical sites.

David had not seen Alan Scott for a year, since Brighton, and, keen to catch up with his old friend, made the journey to the station in Essex where Alan was a navigator flying in Stirlings, dropping troops and supplies at Arnhem.

After a day together, Alan sent him on to friends, Dr and Mrs Noble, who had been for some time in Sydney, and now lived in Cambridge. David could not have had a better guide to show him the beautiful old university city than Mrs Noble, and she enjoyed showing its sights to this thoughtful young Australian, so interested in history and appreciative of architecture. David was delighted when they drove out to Grantchester, the home of Rupert Brooke and subject of one of his best-loved poems. The highlight of the visit was evensong by candlelight in King’s College chapel, where the voices of the boy choristers sounded quite ethereal floating up to the glorious fan-vaulted ceiling. But afterwards parts of a Bach organ concert were almost drowned by the sound of bombers outward bound.

HAPPY VALLEY AGAIN

Back at Kelstern, David was dismayed when the Medical Officer pronounced that Murga, who had been moved to sick quarters with a bad cold and chest problems, would not be able to fly again in winter in England. He had been a first-rate navigator, reliable, painstaking and accurate, and the thought of losing him saddened all the crew. They had grown so close and had developed loyalty and bonds which went very deep.

‘It won’t be the same without old Murga the unflappable,’ they agreed.

They were sad, too, that while they were on leave, J Jig went missing with a sprog crew. Sad for the crew and sad to lose the kite to which they had become so attached. Now they would have to use whatever spare aircraft was available, which was not nearly as good as having their own.

The very next morning on 9 November they were awakened at 0430 to prepare for an op in B Baker, with a spare navigator from a crew which was not flying. It was another Happy Valley destination, the oil refineries at Wanne-Eickel, so vital to the enemy. At dispersal it was bitterly cold and the cold intensified as they climbed to 19 000 feet through a snowstorm, which covered the front turret with snow and obscured the clear vision panel. In a temperature of minus 46 degrees Celsius all the aircraft suffered severe icing problems and the sortie became known as the one on which the fighter pilots’ eyelashes froze. B Baker was an old aircraft, and icing made it even slower. When they broke out above the cloud they found they were no longer part of the gaggle, the grouping to assist fighters to protect them. Because of a navigation error they were well behind time. And alone. ‘Like a country shithouse!’ Drew groaned.

They heard the code word Applesauce for the bomb drop and pressed on as fast as possible amid the flak. While Drew windowed with his usual frenzy, David took evasive action, weaving the rest of the way, to arrive on target 14 minutes late. It was terrifying. All on our own over Happy Valley. Never again, David later wrote.

After dropping their load they lost no time in getting away and were congratulating themselves on having got out of a nasty fix, when Drew caused another flap, calling, ‘Fighters on the port bow! They look like jetties!’ David’s long hours of swotting aircraft recognition again paid off as he was able to reassure the crew they were US Thunderbolts.

‘Phew! Thank Gawd for that,’ Drew muttered, abashed.

Heavy cloud produced more icing on the return journey, again obscuring the front of the nose, and they had to descend to 800 feet before they were below it, flying through torrential rain almost all the way home.

Talking it over afterwards, only Birdy played it cool, dismissing it as most uninteresting.

‘I was more frightened than I had ever been before, with the icing and being alone,’ Drew said.

And Cyril agreed, ‘It was not very nice playing the Lone Wolf.’

Boz admitted to offering a few silent prayers, while Pop summed it up for them all, ‘A hazardous journey.’

Walking into the briefing room for interrogation was always a tense moment. Looking round the room of familiar faces. Were any missing? ‘They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow, They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted’…Laurence Binyon’s words, written in the last war, were true for their generation too. Looking across to the ops blackboard, eyes travelling down the list of aircraft, their crews and their take-off times. Scanning for return slots that were still empty. Listening for the sound of returning aircraft. Even the sound of three engines better than silence. Looking, listening, hoping, praying.

Tonight, late as they were in old B Baker, there were still other crews who were not checked off on the blackboard. The adrenalin which had flowed ever since hearing they were on an op suddenly ebbing away. The exhaustion rolling in. The longing to put the head down. The overwhelming longing for the merciful oblivion of sleep. Blotting out glow of fires, fighter flares, tracery of light flak, flash of heavy flak, glare of searchlight beams, sight of planes going down. And laughing faces never to be seen again?

But before that, interrogation and a meal.

Despite the hazards only two aircraft from the whole Bomber Command force of 256 Lancasters were missing. But they were both from David’s squadron and my particular friends, he wrote briefly and bleakly.

Next morning he was called to the Wingco’s office.

‘You’re one of our most senior pilots now, Mattingley. In future you’ll be taking some sprog crews.’

One of the most senior? He hadn’t been on ops for two months yet. Although it did feel like a lifetime. Jimmy and his crew had been on for nine weeks, Arthur and his for eight. Surviving eighteen ops made him senior?

Shortly afterwards, the Adjutant detailed him for one of the tasks everyone hoped they would never have to do.

David’s chest was tight as he carefully sorted and listed the possessions of his former comrades, packing them into the standard cardboard storage boxes used in this poignant procedure. Letters. Photos. Such intimate personal things. Shaving gear. Underwear. The best uniform. One with a Canada shoulder flash. A clock still ticking. A man’s life in one metal trunk by an empty bed in a metal hut.

‘Brave, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.’ Walt Whitman’s words from an even earlier war running through his mind. And outside the snow on the windswept wold. White cold. The pitiless snow that might have helped to bring them down. Remembering Robert Bridges’ words. ‘I shall never love the snow again Since Maurice died: With corniced drift it blocked the lane And sheeted in a desolate plain The country side.’

Pray God that Arthur and Jimmy and their crews are still alive somewhere.

He snapped down the lids of the two empty black trunks and wrote the names and numbers of his Canadian friend and his English friend on the brown cardboard boxes. He must not let himself get so close to anyone again. Never again. It hurt too much.