Operation Oyster, Philips Radio works, Eindhoven, 6 December 1942.
Cusack’s First Raid and Beyond
With so many of its young men away in Europe as the Japanese threatened, as in the Great War, Australian newspapers and magazines published as much as they could about their boys fighting back. What follows is a compilation of excerpts from John Cusack’s letters home to Dymphna Cusack and Cath Gunn as published in two Australian newspapers, as well as relevant excerpts from contemporary newspaper articles.
December, 1942: The trip to Eindhoven to attack the Philips’ Radio Works was our biggest to date. There were more than a hundred bombers; Bostons, Mosquitos and Venturas. Ours, the Venturas, were to go in last, with our plane the last of the lot. We planned to fly as low as we could and pack as tightly as we could, skimming trees and houses.
My trip was destined not to be a pleasant one, for on testing my guns just after leaving our coast, one jammed, and for the next twenty minutes I sweated and swore while I tried to fix it. I was so busy that I failed to notice that we had reached the Dutch coast. I was wakened to the fact by the hundreds of white streamers that started to streak up past us. I had seen flak before, but never as close as this, as we were only a few feet above the heads of the gunners. The heavy flak is something like a black mushroom that grows and expands when it bursts; the light stuff is like white streamers sailing by. Our wireless operator had his head in the Astra hatch during this little interlude, and a shell blew the glass dome off without even scratching him. As may be guessed, my efforts to get the gun going ceased, and I concentrated on the other, which luckily functioned, so I proceeded to pay back their attentions in kind.
Across these islands and on the mainland the defences are heavy and the shooting good. It shakes you to see planes dive, possibly with your own cobbers aboard dive and become rolling balls of flame. Still, once we left the heavy coastal defences behind we struck flak only in patches.
But one incident rather tickled me. We skimmed over some trees an on to an aerodrome. The defenders gave us merry hell, but as we flashed past I noticed one gunner nonchalantly leaning against his machine-gun and taking no part in the plastering. I gave him a fleeting wave, and he waved back. At the height of tense activity I had time to think, ‘That bloke and I have the same ideas on this ruddy business!’.
Flying low like this through heavy flak, we do what is known as ‘evasive action’, which means the pilots set their planes weaving and dodging in what I call ‘The Dance of Death’ – a mad capering that frightens the seven daylights out of each other as we’re all close together and there isn’t much room for manoeuvring. As we skimmed over towns and villages, Dutchmen out on their Sunday strolls waved to us. It was an oddly cheering sight.
Coming in last to the target, I saw everything. On the target we did such a violent evasive action that I walloped my head against the top of the turret. Our incendiaries made a helluva mess, and we skimmed in over the tops of the blazing factory buildings from which German gunners – still at their posts – were giving us hell. One kite here with a particular friend of mine in it blew up in mid-air. The only merciful thing was that it was all so quick they wouldn’t have known anything about it.
I was trying to get a shot at the roof-top gunners when, to my horror, my other gun jammed. I’ve never been so scared in my life: I broke into a cold sweat. To make matters snappier, just as we got off the target I spotted a Focke Wulf chasing a Mosquito. As they were about a hundred and fifty miles an hour faster than we were, I hoped they’d go on chasing.
By a miracle, we didn’t see another fighter coming out, though in one spot, coming down a channel about a mile and a half wide, we were plastered by batteries from both sides. I didn’t think it was possible for planes to live in such flak; it churned the water into a white mass of foam. One shell twisted our bottom guns round like a corkscrew, but, luckily for us, didn’t explode.
Luck was with us all the way back, and the whole crew came out without a scratch, despite about thirty holes in the plane. Never thought I’d be so happy to see any place as I was to see England. We landed with the port engine conking and with only petrol for another five minutes. There were bits of a tree and leaves caught in the port engine.
Several other newspapers reported the attack on Eindhoven differently; these quotes are from the Herald, Daily Telegraph Service and AAP:
Bombers of the Australian Lockheed Ventura Squadron, on their first raid on Sunday, flew so low they ran into flocks of birds frightened from marshes and fields in Holland.
Pilot Officer Leigh Rule, formerly of Scotch College, Melbourne, said today, ‘Birds crashed into the planes like bricks hitting windows. One front-gunner got a black eye and an observer’s hand was badly split. The fuselages in a few seconds looked as though the crews had been pillow-fighting – every plane was holed or dented where the birds hit us like flak.
Sergeant Cecil Goldstiver hit ten birds, which tore out the Ventura’s landing lights. ‘It was my crew’s first attack, and everyone mistook the birds for shells,’ he said. Sergeant Goldstiver had a second scare. When he was bombing the Radio Works almost at roof-top height, a giant chimney loomed through the smoke. ‘I lifted the port wing and missed the chimney by inches,’ he said.
Describing the attack on the Philips Works, Sergeant Donald Marshall, an air-gunner, of Bexley (NSW) said, ‘I could see the high walls of the factory crumbling down to nothing as our bombs rained down.’
Pilot Officer Lloyd Alley, of Braidwood (NSW) said, ‘Eindhoven looked like a total casualty. It was a magnificent kick-off for our squadron. Sergeants John Cusack (Coogee), John Webb (Manly) and Arthur Galley (Balmain), all air gunners, said the Philips factory was bristling with guns.
All the Australians paid tribute to the bravery of the German gunners, who coolly and accurately fired at the raiders from buildings which were already burning and were likely to blow up at any minute. Pilot Officer Rule, a veteran of 17 raids, said, ‘Don’t under-estimate those Germans in the occupied countries. They’ve got guts!’
February, 1943: Five operational flights in ten days have kept us pretty busy lately. First to Abbeville, where we bombed an aerodrome from ten thousand feet and struck nothing worse than flak, although that was pretty accurate. The next two were aerodromes, and then to Cherbourg and Bruges. ‘F for Freddie’ now has the greatest number of operational flights for the squadron.
We are just back from a raid on an inland target. As the black, ugly blobs of flak broke around, I saw one of our formation hit in the port engine, losing height. Soon three little black specks hurtled from it, and then three white mushrooms opened one after another, drifting down into the clouds. The pilot apparently made an effort to fly the plane back on his own, and the last we saw of it was with one motor billowing black smoke and wreathed in a circle of ack-ack fire. Suddenly, instead of black blobs of flak, we began to see reddish-tinted ones – a disturbing sight, for that is the method the Germans use to call and direct their fighters. Almost three-quarters of the way back to the coast I spotted a blunt-nosed aircraft speeding along under us. Things began to happen, and the sky seemed to be full of twisting black shapes. Three made a vicious attack on our formation, a decidedly unorthodox one, diving under from astern and up and over in front. Evasive action and luck saved our machine, but Number Two went down in flames.
Dog-fights were going on all over the sky between our fighters and the Germans. We ourselves had to beat off two more savage attacks before we got to the coast. It seemed impossible to live in the hail of tracer bullets, but luck was still with us, and we came down in a fast dive to sea-level, leaving the fighter boys behind, still embroiled in battles without end. All agreed that we had no time to be scared in the battle, but all had a bad attack of the jitters when the reaction set in.
Another newspaper clipping reports: ‘Targets raided by the RAAF Ventura Squadron in daylight recently included aerodromes at Coen, Abbeville and Maupertuis (France) and engine sheds at Baugh. After the attack on Maupertuis, the Wing-Commander of escorting fighters reported, “Excellent bombing”. Main buildings, hangars and dispersal huts were hit and debris was flung sky-high. The anti-aircraft fire was heavy and five Venturas were hit, but all aircraft in the squadron succeeded in returning to their base.’
March: An armed merchantman, attacked in the Channel, put into Dunkirk, and the authorities decided it had to be sunk. Dunkirk is about the unhealthiest spot on the whole coast, but away we went. Three times we tried, and could not even see the town for clouds. On the fourth trip the weather was beautiful and the French coast came up tranquil and serene. Dunkirk, scene of history and of horror, looked a little Toy-town. In one shattering burst the illusion was swept aside as flak came up in one tremendous curtain. The concussion threw the plane all over the sky, but we managed to get in, drop our bombs and start to streak for home. On the way back we watched planes crash-landing on fields and aerodromes all along the line, but ‘F for Freddie’ came back right on the dot, and with no more than a dozen holes. Adding insult to injury, photographs next day showed that the damn thing hadn’t been hit, although there were some near misses.
May: We began one of our toughest flights the other day by soaring above cloud formations of incredible beauty, towering masses of fleecy fantasy. Near the enemy coast they cleared, and we meandered serenely over a Europe bathed in peaceful sunlight.
Wicked red splashes awoke us to reality with a shock. The formation slipped and weaved in a crafty dance, but did not deviate from the course. From my lofty perch I watched the bombs go, following them down until they merged with the landscape and were lost. Then from the target arose small columns of smoke that spread and mingled until the whole place seemed to be erupting.
The formation turned for home in a wide sweep. Then out of the intercom came the blood-chilling words, ‘Fighters on the red quarter’. Black specks multiplied and became larger, the gun-leader’s voice gave out ‘evasive action’, and the formation twisted and turned as one. Combination and concentrated fire-power were our hopes: the unfortunate straggler had no chance.
Suddenly, out of the blue like avenging angels, plummeted the high-flying escort of Spitfires, and a series of dog-fights and pursuits swirled at a terrific pace over the whole sky. Some of the German fighters engaged the Spitfires, others hammered away at their quick-breaking attacks on our bombers, the main target. So we battled our way back to the coast, and far back over the sea.
The squadron did not come off a hundred per cent best that day, but I guess we gave as good as we got.
The best account of Operation Oyster and the raids in which the author participated in in 2 Group is found in Chaz Bowyer, 2 Group RAF. A Complete History: 1936–1945, Faber, 1974; ‘Twenty three aircraft were damaged in bird collisions during the operation …’ (p. 280). Readers keen to read about one of the most extraordinary low-level raids of the war could look to James Dugan and Carroll Stewart, Ploesti. The Great Ground to Air Battle of 1 August 1943, Jonathan Cape, 1963].