Squadron Leader James Alcock was declared fit for non-operational duty on February 15, and was posted to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Non-operational meant that he was not yet cleared for flying again over enemy territory; a consequence of the wounds he had suffered in his last raid over St Nazaire. His left hand had healed well and his right collar bone had knitted back as strong as ever. Alcock had no doubts about his continued flying capability, even though two fingers were missing from his left land. After all, he knew of at least one pilot who flew without his original legs; he got on fine with steel ones, and they never bled.
He traveled by train to Waddington, a small town five miles south of Lincoln and thirty-six miles due west of the North Sea. The rustic locals of Waddington were glad that the seething metropolis of London, where most of the German bombs were falling, was a hundred and twenty miles to the south. The same sentiment was expressed by the residents of Lincoln who feared for the safety of their beloved cathedral that had defied fire and earthquake since its consecration in 1092. Its builder, Bishop Remigius, a Benedictine monk and supporter of William the Conqueror, was the first Norman bishop of medieval England.
As the train sped north out of the London suburbs towards Cambridge, James Alcock looked contentedly out of the window at the picturesque countryside which he loved so much. The rains had given a new vitality to the neat and orderly fields and pasture land. Lush greens had replaced the tired browns of last autumn, and early hedgerow flowers had started to bloom, giving a hint that spring was not so very far away. Only the deciduous trees, bereft of their leaves, lent a lingering winter starkness to the landscape.
James loved everything about trains; their rhythmic motion; the clatter and chatter as they went over points; the spinning wheels when they tried to accelerate too quickly and friction failed them. He loved to put his head out of the window as a young boy. He thrilled to the pressure of the rushing air on his face and the sudden darkness when entering a tunnel. The plume of steam and sooty smoke signified power to him. Sometimes he got a black smut in his eye, and he had to let his mother poke around with the twisted end of a handkerchief to retrieve the speck that felt like a boulder. In the train toilet, he liked to look down through the open tube as it flushed and see the railway sleepers whip passed at fantastic speed. He often wondered where the toilet paper ended up. There was something especially romantic about steam trains. He hoped they would never disappear.
The train slowed and then stopped just before getting into Cambridge, a frequent occurrence caused by bomb damage either here or farther up the line. The ticket collector wormed his way among the many passengers standing in the corridors, mostly servicemen and women, and announced to each compartment that the train would be delayed at least an hour, but quickly added “don’t blame me, blame Adolf and his airborne hooligans.” The responses ranged from hisses and boos to colorful expletives not fit for ladies to hear, although some WAAFs and Wrens were the ones making them.
The train eventually whistled and puffed into life again and crawled into Cambridge. Then followed an exodus to the tea trolley on platform 3 by the strongest and the fittest. James did not join the herd as he had come prepared with cheese sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. He offered to share these with the others in his compartment, but only one person accepted his offer, a sickly looking soldier of the Royal Engineers who looked as though he had not slept for a week. Maybe the others saw James’s partial left hand, and, wondering what other body parts he was missing, felt embarrassed to accept a gift from a hero.
After Cambridge the train picked up speed. James went and stood in the corridor in order to give his seat to a pregnant young girl who, like the soldier, looked exhausted and full of cares. He wondered what her story was. Maybe she had just been bombed-out in London and was seeking shelter with a relative up north. Maybe her husband or boyfriend had just been killed in action, and she had no one to help her through her pregnancy or find a home for her. Maybe she had just finished a twelve-hour night shift in an armaments factory. James would have liked to help her further but that was impossible. His mood changed to one of melancholy, so he averted his eyes to the outside world, away from the faces of his fellow travelers.
Once through Peterborough, the train entered the fen country, an area of 400 square miles which lies between 0 and 25 feet above mean sea level. A low land of marshes and bogs, of rivers and cuts, of salt water and fresh water that needed to be defended against the encroachment of the North Sea; a battle that had gone on for centuries, similar to the one that the Dutch had fought and who fight it still.
James remembered his geography lessons as he gazed out over the treacherous expanses of the fens. The Romans first recognized the rich fertility of the soil and the potential for fine grazing, if only the water from the uplands could be continuously drained away. So they built a catch-water from Lincoln to Peterborough for the areas they were most interested in, close to the main Roman thoroughfares of King Street and Ermine Street. But the Romans left and barbarism returned. For two hundred years, Angles and Saxons from the continent raided the country and much of the fens fell into disuse. The raiders became the new “natives”, the Anglo-Saxons. But they in turn had to deal with another set of raiders in the eighth and ninth centuries, the fierce but clever Danes, who with the Norwegians and Swedes were collectively known as the Vikings or Norsemen. The fens provided the Anglo-Saxons with a mostly impenetrable refuge in which to hide and survive. However, after Saxon King Alfred of Wessex, much to his surprise, defeated the Danes at the battle of Ethandune in 878 AD, the Anglo-Saxons and Danes learned to coexist, principally due to the establishment of Danelaw. Danelaw allowed the Danes to settle in the northern and eastern parts of England while the Anglo-Saxons stayed mainly in the south. But peace in the land did not endure, for in the eleventh century, the civilizing Normans came, and the fens once more protected the Anglo-Saxons and their way of life.
As James’s eyes roamed over the fens, he wondered whether or not they would become a refuge again, a home for the British Resistance against the Nazi invaders. Historical precedent might have to be exercised.
The train pulled into Lincoln station where some RAF transport was waiting to take James to his new base.
* * * * *
December 1941 saw the arrival at RAF Waddington of a new, powerful bomber, the Avro Lancaster, which had been under development since the beginning of the year as a successor to the Avro Manchester. It was destined to become the backbone of the RAF’s bombing campaign against the Nazi war machine. James Alcock had been sent to Waddington, along with many other experienced bomber and ground crew, to learn how to fly and maintain this latest flying wonder. He was attached initially to an HCU, a Heavy Conversion Unit, to learn, as quickly as possible, not only the Lancaster’s flying idiosyncrasies but also the operational details of all the systems on the aircraft. As for every bomber pilot, he would be responsible for the safety of his crew, their efficiency and their morale. But these duties were nothing new to him, an old and experienced Halifax captain.
The Lancaster carried a crew of seven - a pilot, flight engineer, navigator, wireless operator, bombardier/front gunner, mid-upper gunner, and rear gunner. Long flights were an exhausting affair for the single pilot, but the flight engineer, who sat on a folding seat beside him, was given sufficient knowledge to fly the plane “straight and level”, although with no formal pilot training he was never allowed to try a landing. Behind the pilot and flight engineer, the navigator had a curtained off compartment so that the lights he required would not give away the plane’s position to enemy night-fighters. The wireless operator’s station was in the rear part of the cockpit section, and he sat in the warmest part of the plane near the hot air outlets from the wings. On the other hand, the mid-upper and rear gunners had to suffer extreme cold in their isolated positions.
James Alcock, who was positively ancient at age twenty-eight, was lucky in having the particular crew allocated to him. They were very experienced, and knew that the key to survival was hard work, efficiency and compatibility, with the major factor of the last requirement being mutual respect. But respect does not come instantaneously; it comes, or does not come, after working together for a period of time. The HCU training allowed for a period of character melding and the ironing out of any personality clashes. The Lancaster became the crew’s home for anything up to ten hours at a stretch; they were not the easiest of hours.
The new crews went through an intensive ground school given by knowledgeable design and maintenance instructors. This took a week, and then the fun began - exhaustively flying the beast. Specific, set air exercises had to be carried out, but captains, once they felt comfortable with the plane, could devise their own.
James pushed his crew hard. He was a stickler for accurate navigation, using every aid available, including astronavigation. He wanted his gunners to be quick at alerting him to enemy fighters and to shoot with precision and determination. He wanted his flight engineer to watch his engine instruments like a hawk for any incipient problems, and also to be able to keep the plane flying long enough for the rest of the crew to bale out if he became incapacitated by a bit of flak or a bullet. He expected his wireless operator to be fast at encoding and decoding messages from base, and to be another pair of eagle eyes in the astrodome searching for the enemy.
James concentrated on night flying exercises, for RAF Bomber Command were night people. He did high-level bombing runs over imaginary targets; he did low-level attacks over the fens at 200 feet, causing the crew’s stomachs to churn and sweat to swamp their armpits. He did emergency drills; loss of three engines; fire in the cockpit; wounded rear gunner retrieval. His favorite exercise was corkscrewing - the principal avoidance technique for shaking off a fighter attacking from the rear. The crew hated this. Swinging around the sky and being subjected to ‘g’ forces sent their stomachs into revolt and heads into a turmoil. He worked his new crew to exhaustion, and then took them home for pints of beer and sausages in a local pub.
After two weeks, the HCU flushed out its latest graduates into operational squadrons. The conversion time was short because the squadrons were short, and the RAF had to step up the frequency of raids on German industrial targets. That was the paramount consideration.
James and his crew joined 4401 Squadron, and stayed at Waddington which pleased everyone. They liked the airfield with its concrete runways, the modern living quarters with central heating, the station cinema, the proximity of Lincoln with its beautiful cathedral, restaurants, shops, and entertainment, not to mention all the pretty girls who were very friendly. If only they did not have to be subjected to the nervous strain of climbing into their Lancaster every other night, life would have been pleasant enough.
James took ‘C for Charlie’, his Lancaster, to Essen on its first raid. Four squadrons were to be involved in the night attack; not a large number but sufficient to keep the ground crews busy preparing the aircraft. On a typical bomber station, ground crew personnel outnumbered air crew by about ten to one, and the men that took to the air greatly valued their skill and dedication, their long working hours out in all kinds of foul weather.
At 1900 hours ‘C for Charlie’ stood at the end of the runway awaiting the green flare for takeoff. James and the flight engineer had completed all checks and the crew sat nervously at their stations, their private thoughts laced with fear but their outward expressions showing a false calmness. James’s thoughts were purely professional. His mind kept on running through the basic specifications of his new plane; wing span 102 ft, length 69 ft 4 in, height 19 ft 7 in, weight empty 36,900 lb, weight normal 53,000 lb, maximum speed 287 mph, service ceiling 24,500 ft, range 1,660 miles, four Rolls-Royce Merlin 24 engines at 1,280 hp each. On and on his mind went, repeating and repeating. Then he saw the ‘go’ signal, advanced the throttles and roared down the runway, deafening his crew and shaking their teeth. He was only 30 seconds behind the previous plane and picked up some of its slipstream. From his HCU training, James knew that the Lancaster had a strong tendency to swing to port on takeoff, so to counteract this he had advanced the port-outer throttle ahead of the others and got his tail up quickly to bring the rudders into play. He breathed a sigh of relief as the plane became airborne and started to climb out at 155 mph with its maximum bomb load of 14,000 lb.
“Pilot to crew, check in with me, please. I need to know that you’re all still there and happy. Over!” said James. The crew responded in turn. All were happy except the tail gunner; he said his balls had frozen off already and wanted to go home.
“Sorry, Nobby, you’re stuck with us for the duration. Don’t worry about your balls; you won’t need them this trip.
“OK, we’re climbing to a cruise altitude of 16,000 ft where we’ll rendezvous with the other squadrons. Gunners, test you guns once we’re over the coast, and don’t hit any of our colleagues. After we set course on the first leg, maintain radio silence except for night-fighter alerts. The enemy have colossal ears. Over and out.”
The squadrons headed east over the North Sea until they reached the second leg turning point and then changed course onto a compass heading of 115 degrees. The flight plan called for crossing the Dutch coast just south of Haarlem then straight on the same heading to Essen, a distance of about 346 miles from Waddington, or a flying time of just over two and a half hours, depending on the actual winds and any evasive maneuvers that had to be carried out. The night was clear of clouds enabling navigators to get a good astrofix immediately after turning onto the second leg and another a half hour later. The point of Dutch coast crossing provided an even better fix, and a set up for the run to Essen.
The squadrons reduced their altitude to the bombing height of 10,000 ft, and the crews waited for their visit to hell to begin. The gunners constantly scanned up, down and around for enemy fighters but none appeared. They could not believe their luck. Where were the little bastards? As they neared Essen itself, the searchlight batteries came on with their blinding lights, making everything in the sky naked. Then the flak came up; tons of it; hot screaming metal that could devour planes and tear flesh apart without mercy. Two Lancasters became caught in cones of light and fell victim to the concentrated flak. One instantly exploded as its bomb load detonated, the other spiraled down in flames to meet the fatherland.
But the bombers had a job to do, and, in flights of three, came in steady on the bombing run, released their bombs onto the targeted factories then soared upwards, free of their load and still alive. The fear in each crew member abated but did not disappear; they still had to get home.
The squadrons formed up again for mutual protection, their numbers reduced. They hurried to cross the coast at near their maximum speed, 287 mph. Get home, get home, get home if you can, willed every flyer. Then the fighters pounced, Junkers 88’s. They tore into the flights like hounds killing a fox. The planes scattered, guns blazing, pilots corkscrewing, twisting and turning, trying to shake the hounds off. Three more planes went down before the fighters were at the limit of their range or had lost contact with their prey.
‘C for Charlie’ was spared, the crew unscathed and almost euphoric as they circled the majestic Lincoln cathedral and came in for a perfect landing. They taxied to dispersal, gathered up the instruments of their trade and disembarked, fatigued but strangely happy, even Nobby whose testicles had unfrozen over the target. They headed for the debriefing building and the taste of a good cup of tea.