Part 4. Another long one – talkative Brits!

October, 1940

ELEVEN AND A HALF HOURS IN A DINGHY AFTER BOMBING BERLIN

BY TWO PILOT OFFICERS

Our heavy bombers are nightly carrying our offensive to Germany, and over certain targets they meet with very active opposition from the ground defences. Searchlights are clustered around and cover the sky hunting for the raiders. Batteries of light and heavy anti-aircraft guns put up intense barrages. Generally our aircraft return safely, but it is inevitable that sometimes the guns inflict damage to the structure of the aircraft engaged. Fighter aircraft also go up at night in an effort not often successful to drive our heavy bombers off the target, but the bombers can stand up to a great deal of punishment, and still fly home, thanks to the splendid workmanship and material that go to their construction.

If, however, the tanks are so penetrated that the petrol runs out, air¬craft may have to make a forced landing, either on land or in the sea. In the event of their landing in the sea, the crew at once take to their collapsible dinghy, and rescue procedure follows immediately. Here is a dialogue between two pilot officers who were compelled to come down in the sea, and they will tell you of their adventure.

FIRST SPEAKER: We were detailed some days ago to attack the Neukolln Gasworks in Berlin. There was a fair amount of cloud on the way out, but we reached Berlin on time, with the cloud tops at 8,000 feet. This cleared at 4,000 feet and when our dead reckoning indicated that we were over the targets, actually we were about forty miles north of it. Circling round we picked up a landmark that gave us our position and we flew towards the target. The gasworks were already on fire. We were not the only people on the target. So we made a direct run for it, climbing a little.

The Germans, however, had a few fighters up in the air and three of them came at us, so we went into the cloud, changed our direction, and later came over the target again. So that we could be sure of our bombing, we came down to 3,500 feet, and were met by all kinds of anti-aircraft fire. There was heavy and light stuff, and machine-gun fire as overweight. We tried to dodge that, came down to about 2,700 feet and bombed Neukolln all in one stick. Our bombs hit the target fair and square. There was a terrific bang, followed by blinding flames. Part of the gas works certainly went up.

SECOND SPEAKER: I was the tail gunner, and I saw the fire. The captain had begun to climb as soon as the "bombs gone" was given, and we got to about 9,000 feet. That fire, from the height we were at, seemed to me to be about half a mile square, with flames three or four hundred feet high. Gas gives a very good blaze. There those flames were, a very angry red. I have never seen a fire so big in my life.

FIRST SPEAKER: Then we came right into nearly everything the Germans could give us. Their anti-aircraft put a hole three and a half feet square into the port wing, and there were between three and four hundred holes in the fuselage. When daylight came it was not necessary to put on the lights. Our aircraft are normally blacked out and we use interior lighting. The holes made that quite unnecessary.

SECOND SPEAKER: We could see the moonlight through the holes anyway.

FIRST SPEAKER: A high explosive shell went straight through the starboard tailplane. Luckily it went straight through with¬out exploding or we should not even have come down in the sea. Then the leading edge of the port tailplane was shot clean away and the port wing badly battered. In fact it was smashed up but we climbed at plus two and a half pounds boost away from the target, to 10,000 feet, being shot at all the time. We were a bit out of luck.

SECOND SPEAKER: That's true. We were the only aircraft left over the target at the time. It was blazing away below us and they were blazing away at us, up there, and they could give us all their attention.

FIRST SPEAKER: We set course to avoid all that dirt, and a bit later went over Bremen. We didn't have time to see much of what had happened there because we were shot at again. Then we flew towards home, passing through a very severe front.

SECOND SPEAKER: A bad front means dirty weather, and we found it.

FIRST SPEAKER: We could still see no land for four hours after we had left the Neukolln Gasworks blazing merrily, and that meant that we were about an hour overdue. We had gone through a lot of very bad weather. It seemed as though our petrol tanks had escaped damage, but we were beginning to calculate our fuel, just the same. Off the Dutch coast we got our location. We were somewhat north of the track. We had had to take quite a lot of avoiding action. When we heard our location we came down through the cloud, working on the estimated time of arrival at a particular point. We got down to 1,500 feet, and found our¬selves still over the sea. There was no land in sight. We flew on for a little more than half an hour. I thought we must have overshot England, and were over the Irish Sea. We turned again and sent out an S O S which was received and acknowledged. The trouble was that there had been a great change in wind speed and direction, of which we, of course knew nothing. Besides which our air speed was very much slower than normal because of the damage.
Then one engine cut out because of lack of petrol, and while the other engine was going I turned the aircraft head into wind in case I had to land in the sea.

SECOND SPEAKER: The captain had taken over the aircraft from the second pilot some time before, and asked to be strapped into his seat. They did that and the navigator came back to see that the rest of the crew were O.K. Orders were given to prepare to abandon aircraft and to land in the sea. So the dinghy was got ready and the Very lights and pistols were collected. The navigator began to hack away the door to use as a paddle.

FIRST SPEAKER: I brought the aircraft down into wind, and the nose hit the crest of a wave. It crumpled straight up on the crash and I was drenched. That didn't matter, because I was going to be drenched in a couple of minutes anyway. The tail-gunner threw out the dinghy which didn't open at once. I climbed out of the escape hatch and walked along the top of the fuselage to see the tail gunner and second pilot in the water tearing the dinghy open with their hands. It opened upside down so we couldn't throw the bag of Very lights into it. They were thrown into the water in the hope that we could pick them up later; but the sea was so heavy they drifted away.

SECOND SPEAKER: The navigator clambered on to the dinghy, but overbalanced and fell out, caught hold of the life-line that had been hacked away, and the captain took a header into the sea to help right the dinghy.

FIRST SPEAKER: Two got into the dinghy and with the help of another member of the crew we pulled it on to the main plane when both of us clambered in. The navigator was still in the water, hanging on while we recovered our breath. We were pretty well humped out. He said he was all right, but after a moment he let go of the line and clung to the door, intending to hang on to the aircraft. Then the dinghy was swept against the tail plane and half of it burst and we could not right it. The navigator, still clinging to the door, drifted away and disappeared. We were helpless and couldn't reach him. There was too much swell. The aircraft floated for about five minutes in all and then went down tail first.

We first hit the water at seven-twenty a.m., and after we were in the dinghy tried to organise ourselves. It was only half inflated, and we were not very successful in getting it straight, but we sat and kept watch and after about an hour opened up the emergency rations, and found the rum and malted milk tablets. But we were very seasick and only the tail-gunner could keep anything down.

At about twelve-forty-five we saw the first Hudson aircraft above us, so we fired the only good emergency rocket we had. The aircraft saw us and circled round but lost us—we were so low in the water.

SECOND SPEAKER: We could see the aircraft circling round for the next four hours. They couldn't pick us up but we knew they would in the end, and at about three o'clock in the afternoon a submarine that was helping came within seven or eight hundred yards. They couldn't see us either.

FIRST SPEAKER: By six o'clock I decided that we should have to spend the night in the dinghy and we started to bale it out. We had a pump, that didn't function too well what with one thing and another and we all sat in the middle and the sides lifted up. I think that saved us. It was just the merest fluke really, but when we got the sides up a Sunderland flying-boat spotted the dinghy, dropped sea markers and attracted another Hudson that was looking for us. The Hudson signalled with a lamp, "Help coming—launch."

SECOND SPEAKER: I had the rations, rum and other sorts, and had tried to pass them round, but the others were all so seasick they couldn't use them. There was no enthusiasm at all. I can tell you we sang no sea chanties in that dinghy. After a couple of hours one of the others produced a cigarette case; but the cigarettes were all wet and so were the matches. One of the crew tried to chew a cigarette, but he soon gave that up too.

FIRST SPEAKER: And the rain simply streamed down and browned us off.

SECOND SPEAKER: We'd been pumping for nearly eight hours altogether and then we saw the wireless mast of what I thought was a destroyer. So I passed the rum rations again: but nobody wanted them. I was so excited that I drank two tots straight off: just to celebrate.

FIRST SPEAKER: After half an hour the launch came up to us and tried to throw us a line. The wind was so strong it blew it back. So the crew of the launch tried another tack. They went up wind and drifted down and got us a line which we tied to the dinghy. Then a heavy wave knocked the launch on to us which tipped us over and we were in the water again, stiff with cramp and most of us nearly exhausted. That was six-forty-five, and we had been adrift for eleven and a half hours.

SECOND SPEAKER: The captain went right under the launch and up on the other side, but he had kicked his flying boots off and they caught him with a boat hook. It took five men to get the captain on board.

FIRST SPEAKER: We were bundled down into the cabin and stripped. They put us into sleeping bags and blankets and gave us hot tea, massage and respiratory exercises. The wireless operator was all in. He had passed out. The tail-gunner had paralysed legs. But for two hours we slept, dead to everything, and the sea was so rough that it bounced me off on to the floor. Yet, through that sea the launch had come at its top speed, which was over thirty knots, and had travelled one hundred and thirty miles from land. There isn't enough to say about the way they did their stuff. They got us back to hospital and into warm rooms with heated beds where they simply cooked us for about four hours. The officers lent us their lounge suits and we had a very good party in the mess and the Station Commander sent his car for us and brought us home.

SECOND SPEAKER: After which we had sick leave and a bit of a holiday. Now we're going back to duty, but the funniest thing is that the night before we took that run I saw my horoscope in the newspaper. I don't believe them; but this is what it said: "Don't partake in long journeys, especially sea crossings."


Lunch in a Sunderland while on patrol.