Part 37.

September, 1940

MINELAYING BY AIR

BY A CANADIAN PILOT OFFICER

"To the many tasks it is already called upon to perform the Royal Air Force since the war has added a new duty—that of laying mines from the air. Many thousands of tons of enemy shipping have already been destroyed by these mines and here is a Canadian officer of the R.A.F., a young 'veteran" with thirty-six operational flights—as well as the D.F.C.—to his credit, to tell you something of the work of the aerial minelayer."

I THINK I had better start by explaining why anyone wants to lay mines by air when submarines and surface minelayers have been doing the job quite effectively for so long. It's not that we've gone into competition with the Navy on the job, it's just that aircraft loaded with mines, can make their way into narrow roadsteads, shallow channels and even into harbours where no surface vessel could possibly penetrate in the face of enemy defences. Within the past five months aircraft of the Bomber Command alone have laid far more than thirty separate minefields. They extend from Norway to the Atlantic ports, and as fast as a way is swept through any of these fields it is built up again where it will do most good—usually in a busy shipping lane or harbour—and in most cases the only way in which those waters could have been reached at all was by air.

Another advantage of minelaying by air is the speed with which a minefield can be sown. On one occasion there was urgent need for a certain enemy channel six hundred miles away from our base to be mined without delay. We received the order at 6 o'clock one evening. By midnight that minefield had been laid.

Accuracy is all important in minelaying. Unless the mine is placed exactly in a shipping channel it will be practically useless. International law, too, quite apart from the risk to our own ships, requires that mines shall be laid only within the limits of clearly defined areas. Actually we're each given a pinpoint on the chart and that pinpoint is where we've got to plant our mines—or bring them back. It calls for dead accurate navigation and the job's got to be done at night under cover of darkness so that the mines can't be too easily located and swept up.

The aircraft we use are Handley-Page Hampden bombers, but instead of the usual bomb load each aircraft carries a single mine. It's a pretty big mine, a long, fat cylinder about ten feet long and weighing close on three-quarters of a ton, and it packs as big a punch in the way of high explosive as a twenty-one-inch naval torpedo. It can do a lot of damage to even the biggest ship—the wrecks of several ten thousand ton supply ships which can still be seen in the Baltic are evidence of that.

The mine is stowed away inside the bomb compartment and enclosed by folding doors in the underside of the fuselage. There's a parachute attached to the mine and as the bomb doors are opened and the mine falls clear, this parachute automatically opens. It checks the rate of fall so that the mechanism of the mine won't be damaged by too violent a contact with the water. The mine doesn't make much of a splash as it goes in and it drags its parachute down after it to the sea bottom, where it stays put until a ship passes overhead and sets it in action.

Compared with a bombing raid a minelaying trip, of course, is a bit tame from the crew's point of view—almost a rest cure in fact. Being over the water most of the time you don't often get such a pasting from the ground defences as you do on a bombing raid. On the other hand, in a bombing show you do see some results for your money, whereas on a minelaying job it's a delayed-action result and you can only hope that the mine you've brought out and planted with such care will bag the biggest ship left in the German Navy. Still, the job has its compensations. For one thing, we realise how important the work really is. For another, we're given a couple of consolation prizes each trip in the form of two high explosive bombs. After we've planted our mines we can use these on any enemy ships that attack us. We don't often bring these bombs back.

When we first started minelaying our only means of retaliation were our machine-guns, and I remember one occasion in the Great Belt when we sighted an enemy destroyer a few moments after we had dropped our mine. We'd have given a lot for a couple of bombs just then but as we hadn't got them we dived down almost to mast height and shot up the destroyer with every gun we had. Then the destroyer did a bit of shooting up on its own account and I reckon we were lucky to have got away with only one hole in the wings.

Mostly though, minelaying is a much more unobtrusive and restrained affair and the less notice we attract in the process the better we like it. We're allowed to use parachute flares, if we want to, to pick up landmarks, but so far I haven't needed them. I've a grand crew and in the dozen or so minelaying shows we've done together we've usually been able to pinpoint our position fairly near to the minefield. From then onwards it's just a matter of working our way to the particular channel or harbour we want and, having discovered it, to find the exact pinpoint in that channel where our mine is to be laid. At other times, particularly if visibility is bad or the clouds very low, we may be quite a while searching for our pinpoint. Once when the clouds were down to five hundred feet we spent an hour over the Kiel estuary, mostly doing steep turns up and down the stretch of water until at last we spotted the particular square yard of estuary we were looking for.

We've been to Kiel several times. The first time I went mine-laying at Kiel I found it sooner than I had intended. I was feeling my way along the coast after coming out of cloud when I spotted a fjord which I knew was somewhere near the part of the coast we wanted. I turned and flew up it to get my bearings and before I really knew where I was I found myself right over the city of Kiel itself, only 800 feet up and with every gun in the place blazing off at us. I really thought we'd bought it that time—the barrage was simply terrific. I turned right about, put the nose of the machine down and we fairly shot back down that fjord. Then, when things had quietened down a bit, we came back, found our pinpoint in the estuary and laid our mine in the right place.

When we first began minelaying by air secrecy, of course, was of vital importance. Even a mention of the word "minelaying" was forbidden, and, instead it was always referred to in official orders by a code word. The whole secret was well kept and some thousands of tons of shipping were lost before the enemy realised that the mines which sank them had arrived by air. That caution is still second nature with most of us.


Handley Page Hampdens.


The cockpit of a Hampden Bomber.

Part 38.

October, 1940

GOOSE FOR DINNER: JUNKERS FOR SUPPER

BY A CORPORAL OF THE BALLOON BARRAGE

WING COMMANDER: I think it was Dr. Johnson who once said he hadn't much use for balloons. Anyhow, if he didn't actually say as much, he probably thought it. Had he lived to-day he'd certainly have had something to say about the balloons of Britain's Barrage for they've now become a part of the landscape. In fact they've become so much a part of the landscape that we down below are apt to take them very much for granted and not think of them as what they really are—one of Britain's bulwarks of the air.

Only a few days ago, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff, sent a message to the Air Officer Commanding Balloon Command, congratulating the balloon staff on their gallantry and devotion to duty in the Battle of Britain.

"Until recently," he said, "your Command have had few opportunities for service of a spectacular nature. On the other hand," he added, "their success cannot be measured by the number of enemy aircraft which they may bring down, but rather by the general efficiency with which they play their part in the air defence of Great Britain.

"By keeping the enemy bombers and fighters at a height where they can be effectively engaged by our own fighters or by anti-aircraft fire," he went on to say, "they have been invaluable members of a team upon the success of whose operations the safety of the entire country depends."

But keeping the German aircraft at a respectful distance and so hampering the accuracy of their bombing isn't Balloon Barrage's only job. They have their excitements as well. From time to time they actually bring down enemy raiders. Here, for instance is a member of a balloon crew which enjoyed that privilege only a few nights ago.
CORPORAL: The boys in our crew won't forget that night for a long time. It was the night we had wild goose for dinner.

I don't know how many of you know what life on a balloon barrage site is like. But believe me it's not always like being in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, not by a long way. Of course, it's very largely what you make it, and I for my part have never had a happier time in my life. But in some parts of the country, in the open, for instance—well, as I said before, it's not always like being in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. That's why a little extra appreciation from the people round about goes a long way.

It's funny that we should all remember that night by the goose we had for dinner, for we're all right for grub in Balloon Command.

But in spite of the good food, we've all got a long memory for anything like a real delicacy, like turkey or roast duck—or goose for instance. That's how I remember that particular day so well, because it was the day that Paddy, our Irishman—he's a boot-maker by trade—it was the day that Paddy shot down a wild goose. We cooked it ourselves too, on a stove lent to us by one of the local residents. It was a great day. As one of the crew had it: "Goose for dinner and Junkers for supper."

It was nasty sort of weather for balloons all that day. There was a gale of wind blowing, sometimes up to as much as forty-five miles an hour. This made the cable slant at an angle awkward for handling—and even more awkward for avoiding it if you were an enemy aircraft. There were clouds, too—clouds at different heights. You could never tell what heights those clouds would be next minute, for they were always changing and piling up on top of one another. That was why we kept the balloon moving up and down all day and during the night until we caught our Junkers.

There were strict orders to the guard on duty that night to follow the clouds up and down and pay close attention to the strain on the cable. We were all on our toes. We'd been on our toes for thirteen months.

We'd had two alerts that evening. The second came soon after ten o'clock. The clouds had come down even lower at this time and the wind was rising even higher. The crew were hauling in the balloon very slowly when suddenly we heard the sound of an aircraft. He was flying low and fast and sounded close at hand. Almost at once we heard one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight heavy bangs. Bombs!

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds after this that we heard a terrific ear-splitting roar in the clouds just above. It was the enemy aircraft, in a power-dive, nosing down straight on top of us. One of the guard—a schoolmaster by profession— was working the winch at the time. He jammed on the brakes and ducked down in the cage. He was taking no chances. What he was frightened of was that the plane would crash on top of him or maybe they'd go for him with their machine-guns.

One of the other guards was Paddy, the Irish bootmaker. He just dropped on one knee—exactly like the way he'd taken the pot shot that had brought down the duck—and took aim with his rifle. What he was aiming at I don't think even Paddy knew—but that's neither here nor there. The point is, he was ready for action.

It was at this moment that we caught sight of the Junkers for the first time. Apparently he'd caught sight of the balloon and immediately flattened out his dive. With a "zoom" he started a climbing turn to the right. He was trying to skim past the cable. He didn't know, of course, that the cable was slanted at an angle and so he couldn't judge its path correctly. That's where he came unstuck.

All this was a matter of seconds, of course. Then with a desperate pull he swerved and the plane hit the cable with such a terrific force that it was pulled completely round. Showers of bright red and yellow sparks flashed from the cable and the machine. You'd have thought it was daylight. And then the jolly old balloon broke away.

WING COMMANDER: What happened then?

CORPORAL: The fun was only beginning then. As soon as they heard the noise the guard dashed up to the hut. Naturally, they were all excited and kept shouting: "The balloon's gone, but we've caught a Jerry." They'd spotted it as a Junkers 88 from its silhouette. They all dashed out from the hut—just in time to see the Junkers in an awful blaze, it seemed about two or three miles away. What a sight for sore eyes that was!

WING COMMANDER: I should imagine the whole countryside was pretty well awake by this time?

CORPORAL: Everybody was bundling out of their houses, cheering and shouting. Up came the air-raid wardens to our post, asking how it had all happened. When we told them, they were as proud about it as we were.

I had then the job of reporting the whole affair to our flight headquarters, so I got into my great-coat, borrowed a motor-bike from one of the dispatch-riders and set off with the good news. I felt like the man in the poem—the one that brought the good news from Ghent to somewhere. I never could make out from that poem what the good news was, but I certainly felt like the man. From flight headquarters, a message was sent to squadron, and so I set off for the site again.

WING COMMANDER: You'd still some odds and ends to tidy up, I suppose?

CORPORAL: AS far as I was concerned, the most important thing was, of course, the balloon and the cable. After a long search we found the cable. It was stretched over three fields, half a dozen back gardens, a couple of houses, a length of telegraph wires and a roadway. We arrived back just in time to meet the squadron leader who had come over from headquarters to inspect the wreck which was about five miles away.

Then we set about clearing the cable from the roadway and the houses. I think that was the worst job of the lot. It took us till daylight to get that done, hauling every inch of it as carefully as if it were string from a child's kite. We had other troubles as well, for one householder came out and demanded to know how much longer we were going to be as he couldn't get to sleep again, he said, once he'd been awakened. The poor old gentle¬man didn't realise how near he'd been to never waking up again!

WING COMMANDER: What happened to the Junkers. ... I mean where did it come down?

CORPORAL: By an extraordinary piece of good luck for the people round about, it flew over completely open country till it blew up and scattered itself over the fields.

WING COMMANDER: What happened to the crew?

CORPORAL: TWO of them baled out and fractured their legs on landing. The other two were killed.

The next morning we examined the balloon cable. One of the strands was flattened out as if it had been hit with a heavy sledge-hammer—that was where the Junkers had hit it. It took us all the morning to get the cable back on to the winch after the armourer had taken the broken piece away for investigation.

We have only one regret, actually, and that is that we caught the Junkers after he'd dropped his bombs, and not before. We've now a new balloon and are keenly waiting for the next Junkers to come along.

WING COMMANDER: Well! I hope the next time, you have goose for dinner as well.


A Barrage Balloon Demonstration.

Part 39.

October, 1940

MAINTENANCE WORK

BY A FLIGHT SERGEANT OF COASTAL COMMAND

I am a flight sergeant in charge of a maintenance party at a Coastal Command station of the Royal Air Force. Our squadron uses American-built Lockheed Hudsons, which go out over the North Sea every day on reconnaissance duty.

I was piloting myself until an accident put me on ground duties. Now my job is to keep the Hudsons in the air.

The aircraft repair section of any station is a pretty busy place. All day, and all night as well, you hear the buzz of electric drills, the rattle of compressed air riveters, the hum of paint-sprayers and the roar of engines. It's not a peaceful life, but it's a very interesting one. There's plenty of work for us all, from the youngest reservist to the station engineer officer.

Talking of youngsters, I have a very useful lad who is a modern counterpart of the chimney-sweep boys of the past. He's only four feet six inches, and of course is called Tich, and is the only person on the station small enough to crawl right to the tail end of the fuselage of a Hudson. He was away one day, and another rigger took his place. This man got to the end but became wedged, and we couldn't move him. It took two hours' work to get him out. He had gone in feet first, and got stuck on his back between a couple of cross-bracing struts and the roof. We had to turn him over on to his stomach and pull on his shoulders to get him out. After that, Tich reigned supreme in his own sphere.

Ours was the first squadron in the R.A.F. to be equipped with American aircraft, and anyone who wanted to know the difference between the English and American language should have come to our workshops then. Many of the engineering terms are quite different. Most people know that petrol is gasoline, and engines are motors, but did you know that the American equivalent of chassis is "structure", oil or petrol feed-pipes are collectively called "plumbing", a handfuel pump is a "wobble pump", and a tailplane is a "horizontal stabiliser"? There are many more curious terms we had to learn when we first got Hudsons. We could have done with a dictionary. We had the very willing assistance of Lockheed and Wright-Cyclone engine experts to smooth the difficulties, but even they unwittingly misled us on occasions. For instance, they would talk about seeing a ship out at sea, and while we would look on the water they were watching an aircraft in the sky.

In a way, we are rather like surgeons who take a pride in performing restorative treatment. We replace broken sections, and graft on new metal skin. If you could see the damaged condition in which an aircraft sometimes returns, you would think it could never be repaired. But we can do wonders with a few days in the workshops—or even a few hours—and it comes out again as good as new.

When an aeroplane returns with battle-scars we make a thorough examination to check up the full extent of the damage. It's amazing how some bullet-holes hide themselves away. On one occasion we thought we had finished the repairs, but a final check-over revealed a bullet-hole through a bolt holding a wing in place. The bullet had neatly removed the core of the bolt without damaging anything else, so it was difficult to see that anything was wrong. Then, sometimes, a scrap of shrapnel will play havoc with the complicated wiring system of the instrument panel. When something goes wrong with that box of tricks, you need the patience of Job to put it right again.

One of our most interesting jobs was repairing a Hudson which became known as the "corkscrew plane". It was badly damaged near Norway, and limped home with rudder controls away. The crew almost baled out, but decided to try and put it down, and made a sort of side-slip landing in the dark. They were all safe, but the aircraft was a mess! We got to work that night. The tail control wires were all wrapped round each other like a ball of wool after the cat's got it. We had to rebuild the entire port tailplane, but that aircraft was flying again within live days, and is still doing its patrols to-day.

We did a quick-change act on another Hudson which came back 300 miles over the sea with one engine seized up. The pilot radioed that one engine had packed up, and the moment he landed we had a new engine and all accessories ready. The aircraft arrived back in the evening, and we had it flying again the next day.

It's a great help to us that the engine unit of a Hudson is amazingly compact. Each of the two 1,100 h.p. engines is held to the wing by only a very few main bolts. We can take out one engine and bolt another in position in a quarter of an hour, and it only takes another couple of hours to connect all the pipe-lines, controls and exhaust system ready for starting up.

Every man on the maintenance side knows the responsibility of his work. The crews of our aircraft give us their complete confidence. Their successes against the enemy are ample reward for our work. They place their lives in our hands, and we do our best to be worthy of the trust.


Servicing a Hudson. The tail is raised so that the guns can be checked.

RedToo,
Thank you very much indeed for this thread, its very special and important that folk get a chance to see and read about such aspects of the Battle of Britain and circa that period, its not all just dogfights etc, though they also make for interesting reading, personal accounts etc are fascinating. Keep it coming, you have there an excellent book. I must track down a copy. One I should have but haven't.
Such recollections would make for intelligent TV especially if the techies could recreate some of these events using digital wizardry. Far better than the dumb dross aired to the masses nowadays and would help correct the imbalance of USA v GB aviation heritage progs out there.
How are you turning it into digital type ? Pictures are also top class, no woozy jpegs but produced by someone who cares about quality. Well done.
BOBC

Thanks for the kind words BOBC. I scan a chapter each week into Finereader - an OCR program, then dump it into Word to tidy it up and add picture links. I find my pics from all over the place but mostly I scan them from books in my collection that date from WWII (CanoScan3200F). Then tweak in Photoshop. A couple of the pics in the thread are modern day but messed with to make them look older ...
I agree about the other RAF commands during the Battle of Britain, they too were working flat out, but the focus does tend to be (rightly) on the fighter boys.

RedToo.

Part 40. Rather well written this week.

October, 1940 AIR LOG

A TAIL GUNNER’S STORY

BY A FLIGHT LIEUTENANT, R.A.F.V.R.

The speaker is a commissioned air gunner in the R.A.F. V.R.—a flight lieutenant, aged 39, and a well-known big-game shot—who has been flying as a tail gunner with a Heavy Bomber Squadron operating by night over Germany.

I am going to tell you something about the life of a tail gunner in one of our heavy night bombers. But if you expect a long catalogue of thrilling incidents, you will be disappointed. We certainly have our excitements—we get shot up, iced, and some¬times fed up—but for the most part our outings lack the Holly¬wood element. In the last resort, it is in the gunner's hands that the safety of the crew rests, but the high lights of serial combat— Kipling's Unforgiving Minute at close quarters—come only now and then. At the end of seven and a half hours in the tail turret, one rather sighs for them.

A tail gunner is part of a crew, and this crew's life dominates not only his flying hours but his whole existence. Crews are married up at an operational training unit, or on arrival at their squadrons, and after that they are never parted. Crew life becomes unendingly intimate. On the trip, you don't see them at work, but you know they're there, and you take comfort from each other. Without being sentimental, there is a sense of comradeship about the venture. You come together, six nondescript indivi¬duals—young and old, lean and fat, officer and non-commissioned officer. You eye each other in a rather British sort of way and wish you could find something graceful and appropriate to say. You can't. You think how odd they look and I suppose you must look just as odd to them. None of you would probably have chosen each other if crews were made on the picking up principle, but after a bit you would not dream of changing. It is really very curious.

In our crew the captain and second pilot were Scots; the two wireless operator air gunners were from Canada and the Irish Free State, while the navigator came from the West Indies; and I'm an Englishman. One of the gunners is young enough, with due precocity on my part, to be my son.

The two other things that are all-important to a gunner are his turret and his guns. He is entirely responsible for their upkeep and efficiency, and he nurses them as a woman does her child. Daily he cleans them, fills the ammunition boxes, looks to the sighting. As to his turret, it is his home for all his flying hours. He's practically always working in the dark. At first, one is all at sixes and sevens. One puts down the loading handle or the spanner or the dummy round, and cannot find it again. One bangs one's head and tears one's hands. I have shed good blood, not to mention flesh, in my turret. But after a bit it becomes almost lovingly familiar. One knows the exact peculiarities, the strains and stresses of each fitting, and each seems to have a personality which one regards with affection even in its most stubborn moments.

I'll take you with us to-night on an ordinary sortie over Germany. The first time it's rather a thrill and one feels that there should be more ceremony about it; but after a bit it becomes an unnoticed routine. After all, one could hardly line up like a musical comedy chorus and sing: "There'll always be an England". So settle down in the seat, adjust your flying-helmet, play into the inter-communicating set—and there you are. Your parachute is hung up just behind you and you've locked the turret doors. As is probably well known, our turrets are power-operated, swinging easily in any direction, and so you test your turret, moving it to and fro by pressing on a pair of handles, rather like bicycle handles. And you finally load and cock the guns, putting on the safety catches, because one may meet brother Boche at any moment. All this makes you feel rather hot, because knowing you may fly high, you've got on a couple of pull-overs, a leather Irvine suit which is fur-lined, leather gauntlets with silk linings and heavy flying-boots. You apply your body gingerly to the seat. Seven hours is a good long sit. I can assure my listeners that the last few months have made me a connoisseur of contours.

Then you switch over your "inter-com" and speak to the captain to show it's working all right; and you hear the others doing the same, for you are all on the same circuit. In this way you get a very fair idea of what is going on all round the aircraft. You can picture each member of the crew doing his job from the report he gives or the instructions he receives. Personally, I never talk down the "inter-com", unless I have anything that needs saying. My first squadron-commander told me that a garrulous tail gunner was an infernal nuisance—and I marked his words.

The striking thing about a tail turret is the sense of detachment it gives you. You're out beyond the tail of the plane and you can see nothing at all of the aircraft unless you turn sideways. It has all the effects of being suspended in space. It sounds, perhaps, a little terrifying, but actually it is fascinating. The effect it has on me is to make me feel that I am in a different machine from the others. I hear their voices; I know that they are there at the other end of the aircraft, but I feel remote and alone. Running my own little show, I like to sense that they are able to run theirs feeling that they needn't worry about attack from the rear. Some gunners have told me that this sense of isolation weighed heavily on them at first, but I have spent a lot of time occupied with solitary pursuits and it has never irked me, personally.

We must keep a good look out, you and I, in our rear turret to-night, for, in the last month or so, the enemy fighters have been more active by night; and quite a few of our gunners have been engaged. Previous to that we had, unfortunately, not had much opportunity of using our guns, except during the period of the fighting in France when we got quite a lot of good ground targets at low altitudes. I remember with peculiar satisfaction a long white road in Northern France, a full moon and a German lorry column; a particularly desirable combination, if I may say so. But from a gunnery point of view our outings have often been, as Dr. Johnson said of second marriage "the triumph of hope over experience". We hoped that the German fighters would be up and engage us. Experience taught us that it was unlikely; but now things have livened up a bit.

Now we are rising slowly over the familiar, darkened landmarks below. A pause, and we have crossed the coast and we ask the captain's permission to fire a burst into the sea, just to make assurance doubly sure as regards the serviceability of our guns. Out at sea, away on my beam, I suddenly see another aircraft; a twin-engined plane flying parallel to us. It is a long way off. Can it be a Messerschmitt 110? I report to the captain and keep it in view, but as it swings in I recognise the high familiar tail fin of the Wellington. Soon it has disappeared again in the darkness. Good hunting.

Time passes—we are over the Dutch coast and soon we are flying high above a bank of clouds. It is lit from below by German searchlights and this gives it a sort of opaque glow. Our captain comes down just above it, so that we can have cover if it is needed. Ten minutes later we are past the clouds, climbing again. We have been this way before and we are getting to know it quite well. Now the Germans are after us with their searchlights —and pretty good they are, too. Out in front there is a flak barrage, otherwise known as an anti-aircraft barrage. You and I in the tail turret can't see the barrage yet. The searchlights keep crossing and crossing. Now one's caught us. But no. After holding us for a moment it passes. Two minutes later, however, they get us good and proper. And very confusing it is, too. You feel a cross between a fly on an arc lamp and a man whose clothes have been pinched while he was bathing. But, of course, it's a good deal worse for the captain, who's flying the aircraft.

We turn and twist, hoping to get clear, and—now the party's starting!—here comes the flak. Personally the German flak has never worried me very much. Perhaps I've been lucky. You can see the pyrotechnics coming bursting up at you, and going off all round you, with a sense of detachment. It's a Brocks' benefit—and all for you. It would cost you a shilling at the Crystal Palace. I have never really honestly felt it could be going to hit me. I suppose I'm the usual indolent English optimist. And if it does catch us, we have the benefit of our marvellously constructed machine. They stand a lot of punishment. A large hole was once made only four feet behind my seat, and I never even knew the old kite had been hit.

Well, we are getting pretty close to the target now, and I can hear the navigator and the captain chattering away over the "inter-com"; but actually there is no need to worry about spotting our target to-night, because some more of our bombers have been there first and the factory we're after is blazing away nicely. It's a terrible temptation to the gunner to sit and watch the bombs dropping. But really he oughtn't to, because we may be attacked at any moment and the rear gunner's job is to watch for their attack, not ours. Still, let's have a peep or two out of the corner of our eye. The first stick seems a bit wide, but the second hits the target square as far as one can judge, and adds to the blaze. "Whoopee!" shouts the second pilot. "Whoopee!" shouts back the captain: and "Whoopee" shout you and I from the back.

We waste no time but turn for home. This is where we may expect attack. We have been fired at pretty continuously all the time we have been over the target area, but now the flak has stopped, and there are only the searchlights. This seems to suggest fighters. A few nights earlier, in this same area, a machine from our squadron met an enemy fighter under just these conditions. With both aircraft illuminated by German searchlights, the fighter came bursting up and started banging off tracer at about 600 yards. It went low.

Our gunner let him come to within three hundred yards and then gave him three or four bursts. He banked sharply and then broke away. However, the gunner thought that wasn't the end of him, nor was it. He came in again, slightly above, and firing off red and green tracer with all the enthusiasm associated with the fifth of November at a prep. school. This time our gunner gave him all he'd got. But he didn't need the lot. He just went into a vertical dive and pitch-forked himself into the Reich.

Well, we're all teed up for something to happen; but it doesn't. More searchlights, more flak, but no fighters, and in due course we are crossing the coast again, though that in itself spells no immunity from attack. It's beginning to feel pretty chilly because we have been flying at a good height; and I suddenly find that one of my legs is getting cramped, and that six and a half hours of scanning the heavens has been a bit of a strain on the eyes; and that my hands have grown weary of holding the grips that operate the turret. In short, quite suddenly, one finds that a lot of time has passed, much to one's surprise, and that one's feeling tired. Still, anything may happen at any moment, one keeps telling one's self—one must not relax.

Now we're over our own coast. Searchlights catch us at once. Our searchlights are really good.

We've had a good trip. Things have gone well. The target was found easily and was well and truly hit. There's a happy atmosphere inside the kite—though nothing is said. You notice the barometer rising. It's sort of psychological.

Well, here we are, circling the aerodrome, waiting for per¬mission to land. In we come—a good landing—and we taxi up to the hangar. The C.O.'s on the tarmac—"Square" by nickname and square by nature—and he wants to hear about it; and then we go and pull off our flying-kit; swap a few experiences in the crew room; put in the report.

And so to bacon and eggs and bed in the pale light of a dawn I used to associate with roe stalking and cub hunting, though that seems a long time ago now.

I wish I could tell you something about this ordinary tail gunner's outing that was more spectacular than the things that have happened to you and me . . . there isn't even a hole in our aircraft to show we've been there. But the life of a tail gunner in a heavy bomber is one of long hours of humdrum. I am glad that so much of the mock-heroic nonsense talked about tail gunners in the early days of the war has dried up—suicide clubs, and that sort of idiocy. We resented it. But I should like to say a word of thanks to the designers and workpeople who give us our splendid, unfailing guns, and to the armourers who at all hours and in all weathers keep them in action. They are heroes of this war, and it is they who make our work something in which we have a full measure of confident pride.


Servicing the rear guns of a Whitley Bomber.

Part 41.

October, 1940 AIR LOG

TWO FIGHTER PILOTS’ STORIES

The other day two fighter pilots met for the first time. They met in the sky, high above the Thames estuary. One was in a Spitfire and the other was in a Hurricane and they had become separated from their squadrons. Finding themselves together, they formed a little team. Between them they "beat up" six German raiders. They know that they destroyed three of them—two Dorniers and a Messerschmitt—and they don't think the others were likely to get home.

Having finished that job they flew back to the coast, waved to each other and went their different ways.

Ten days later they met again, this time on land. The Hurricane pilot flew across to the Spitfire pilot's aerodrome and they went over the battle together. To-night they are going to talk it over again for your benefit. They found that they were both about the same age {the Spitfire pilot is twenty-one, the Hurricane pilot twenty), that they both had the D.F.C., that they had joined the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve at the same time—February, 1938, and that they had each won their commission since war broke out.

The Spitfire pilot was a farmer in Shropshire before the war. The Hurricane pilot was a Manchester bank clerk. Perhaps he'd like to begin the conversation.

HURRICANE PILOT: I'd like to go through that day again. When I first saw you come alongside in your Spitfire I thought you were a Messerschmitt. Then, you remember, I pointed at the Dornier about a mile in front, and saw you go away from me, because a Spitfire certainly has the legs of a Hurricane at that height. When you'd made your first attack, I caught up with him and we took our time finishing him off. As a matter of fact, I ran out of ammunition towards the end, when he was down to fifty feet. I made several dummy attacks on him before I saw you send him into the sea.

SPITFIRE PILOT: And I thought you were playing the little gentleman. It just seemed that you were saying: "Look, you have this one, it's your turn."

ANNOUNCER: Now you are getting on too fast. Let's start again with the Spitfire.

SPITFIRE PILOT: What happened to me was this: Our Spitfire squadron was over London when the battle began and pretty soon we were all split up into a series of dog-fights. When you are tearing about the sky you don't see much, and you sometimes find yourself alone when you do get a chance to look round. That was what happened to me. I could see no sign of my squadron or of the enemy formation. There were plenty of clouds about, remember. I looked around and saw, about 2,000 feet above me and away to the north-east of London, three Dorniers and three Messerschmitts being dogged by a Hurricane.

I decided to go up and give whatever help I could, but before I could get up there the Hurricane was milling around with the Messerschmitts and two of them were walloping down through the clouds absolutely done for, in my opinion. When I got up there I shot down the odd Messerschmitt. Then I saw you blaze away at a Dornier. He did a somersault—a couple of somersaults. As he whirled over, bits of his wings fell off, and he went crashing down through the clouds.

After that I drew alongside your Hurricane and you pointed forward. I looked where you were pointing, and saw a Dornier about a mile ahead, heading off for the sea. I opened up and drew away from you, made an attack and the Dornier went down through the clouds. We both followed him through, and took it in turns to attack him. By the time he had reached the coast he was at 1,000 feet, still going down steadily. He was only at fifty feet when we passed down the middle of a convoy. We were below the tops of the masts all the way between the ships. Then, about forty miles off Clacton-on-Sea, I gave the Dornier a final burst and in he went.

He alighted on the water tail first, quite comfortably, you might say. Then a wing cracked off, his back broke, and down he sank.

ANNOUNCER: What does the Hurricane say to that?

HURRICANE PILOT: I really didn't notice your Spitfire until you flew alongside when the chase of the final Dornier began. I remember cracking one Dornier down, and attacking another, and then being set on by three Messerschmitts 109. And after the milling around with the Messerschmitts I started after the Dornier. I know I hit at least two of the 109s, but I didn't see them go down. I was too busy. I remember, though, attacking a Dornier earlier on. Maybe two. It's hard to say.

SPITFIRE PILOT: I saw you do it. The first one was lovely. And the other went straight down through the clouds in a vertical dive.

HURRICANE PILOT: The main thing is that we beat them up, isn't it? What I liked was when you shot off in front of me chasing that last Dornier. When you caught him up and started squirting at him I was about half a mile behind you. He dived through the clouds, so I dived through after him. I came out below the clouds and the Dornier came out a short distance away. I think he was a bit of a nit-wit, don't you? If he had stayed in those clouds he might have been safe.

SPITFIRE PILOT: You're right. But, mind you, he had a lot of my bullets inside him even then, and maybe he wanted to stay in the clouds and couldn't. It was easy after that, wasn't it? Those quarter attacks we made on him, in turn. First you from the right, swinging across his tail, then me going at him from the left. We just criss-crossed as he flew on a straight course, though losing height all the time. I should say he was about 1,000 feet when we reached the coast, and he got down to fifty feet before we finished him off.

HURRICANE PILOT: Before YOU finished him off, you mean. I liked the way we both flew back to the coast, grinning at each other. I thought once of coming along with you to your aerodrome so that we could discuss the battle together. Then I thought I'd better get back. I only had a few gallons of petrol left when I landed.

SPITFIRE PILOT: SO had I.

ANNOUNCER: Well, your story certainly shows that it doesn't really matter—to the Germans, I mean—whether a Spitfire or a Hurricane attacks them.

HURRICANE PILOT: There's no doubt about that at all. Nevertheless, I'm used to the Hurricane, so give me a Hurricane every time.

SPITFIRE PILOT: And give me a Spitfire. By the way, a Spitfire is a lot easier to handle than some of the trainer aircraft I learned in. I do hope that my old instructor is listening in to this, for he always said I was the world's worst pupil in any kind of aircraft.

HURRICANE PILOT: That's funny. That's what my old instructor used to tell me.

ANNOUNCER: Perhaps that's part of the instruction.

Part 42. Posted early for Christmas.

October, 1940

RESCUE IN THE ATLANTIC BY A SUNDERLAND FLYING-BOAT

BY A FLIGHT LIEUTENANT

MY Sunderland was the flying-boat which found a lifeboat in the Atlantic recently and brought its twenty-one occupants back to this country. It belongs to one of the Royal Australian Air Force Squadrons and the entire crew is Australian.

The men in the lifeboat were survivors of a torpedoed ship and they had been adrift for three and a half days when we picked them up. We had sighted the same lifeboat two days before, and had dropped a container with food and cigarettes to the men. But the condition of the sea then made it impossible to alight. The second time we saw them they had rowed and sailed a little nearer to this country, but they were still about 150 miles from the nearest land.

It was still dark when one of my gunners reported a red light on the sea some miles away. We flew in that direction, and soon we could see the outline of a boat below us.

We flew round for about a quarter of an hour waiting for the daylight to improve. I thought the condition of the sea might permit a landing, and made several dummy approaches on the water. This meant coming down very low—a few feet above the surface—to see whether it was possible to get down without damaging the flying-boat.

I discussed it with my co-pilots. We decided that it could be done, and I came down on what seemed to be the flattest area of sea in the vicinity. This, however, wasn't as calm as it seemed. There was quite a lumpy swell and the aircraft lurched rather heavily once or twice before coming to rest.

We kept two of our four engines running, but they gave too much headway to the aircraft and the men in the lifeboat, about a quarter of a mile away and rowing hard, could not catch us up. We turned back towards them and stopped all our engines.

I directed them towards the bow of the Sunderland and asked them to lower their mast, which might have holed the wing. They brought the boat round and several of the men fended it off while the others piled in through the front gun turret. It wasn't an easy transfer because their boat was rising and falling in front of the nose of the Sunderland.

Although several of the men were suffering from exposure and later were taken to hospital, they clambered aboard with very little loss of time. Some of them were throwing kit from their boat into the aircraft, but I objected on the grounds of weight. The skipper had a big cardboard box under his arm. He said: "What about this? Here are my ship's papers." Of course, I couldn't refuse those.

I was anxious to get off again as soon as possible and we distributed the passengers in the aircraft so that their weight would not upset its trim. We had been on the water nearly half an hour.

It was a tricky take-off because of the confused swell and the additional weight. We struck rather a bumpy patch in the course of our run which sent several cups scuttling in the galley and we nipped the tops of two swells before we were properly airborne.

On the way back to base, the rigger, who is our cook, gave the survivors as good a breakfast as he could on the food available—which, unfortunately, was not much for so many. But it was at least hot—cooked on the galley stove.

I didn't see much of our passengers on the way back as we were confronted with foggy conditions and my co-pilots and I were fully occupied in managing the aircraft. However, we got back safely and handed our survivors over to the care of the medical officer, who was waiting for them as a result of a wireless message we had sent.


On patrol. The midship gunners of the Sunderland are alert at their stations. Below, in the crew’s quarters, the ‘watch off’ takes it easy.


Torpedoed.

Lovely series, thx so much for your scanning and OCR work!

Always nice to read your posts, RedToo!