Part 76. Apologies, late due to holidays

2. Mast-high Over Rotterdam

A highly successful daylight raid was carried out this afternoon on enemy shipping in the docks at Rotterdam. Several squadrons of Blenheims of bomber command were engaged in the operation and the attack was pressed home with great daring from very low levels. (Air Ministry Communiqué)

THE first I saw of Rotterdam was a sky-line of high cranes over the docks. Climbing as high as the cranes themselves were fat columns of black smoke to mark the shipping that had already been successfully bombed. I was in the second formation of Blenheims to attack.

I had watched the leading squadron cross the Dutch coast only a few feet above the sandy beaches, where people waved us on, and I wondered if they had noticed the R.A.F. unconsciously giving the “V " for Victory sign as we flew over in vic formation. There was the astonishing flatness that I had expected and only occasionally could I feel the aircraft lifted up to miss windmills, farmhouses and villages; but most of all I was delighted to see that the country Dutchmen really do wear baggy trousers and vivid blue shirts. Cows galloped nervously about as we came hedge-hopping over the fields. Nearly everyone we saw gave us some kind of cheery gesture: but one man, evidently alarmed, was crouching against a telegraph pole. Actually we were so low that a few of my friends brought back some evidence of it. One pilot, for instance, not only cut straight through a crane cable, but got a dent in the belly of his aircraft, and some red dust, scraped from a Dutch chimney-pot, stuck to his aircraft. The same pilot had evidently been corn-cutting in between the hedges and returned with a small sheaf of the stuff in a niche on the leading edge of his wing.

We bombed Rotterdam at 4.55 in the afternoon. As we flashed across the docks, the observer saw “our " ship—a bulky black hull and one funnel. We nipped across the last building and from mast-height we let our load drop. She was a medium-sized ship—I should guess about 4,000 tons. I could feel the bomb doors springing to, and then we were away over towards the town. In ship bombing of this kind, often you can't see your results; but I had a very clear view of our own results this time. There was a terrific explosion and instantaneous smoke and flames. I have seen lots of these explosions by now, but this one was by far the biggest. Over to the left we saw a good many supply vessels burning from the attack by the first wave. Elsewhere burning warehouses obstructed the view and only the bombers following on could see what had happened.

And then on our way out of the town, with white tracers whipping under us, I saw great pillars of smoke spring up from the other enemy ships we had bombed.

We had a good trip home and it had been a great day.


9 Staffel/ Jagdeschwader 26 Pilots during the Battle of Britain: