大象传媒

OPERATION FAUST. During late winter and early spring of 1945 starvation was rampant in Holland, and unless something could be done to relieve the food shortage, thousands of elderly and very young would surely die. Despite the tremendous risk, Bomber Command decided to send bombers loaded with food in the bomb bays, and flying at low level, to specific drop zones in Holland. Several weeks earlier we had made training flights where we had experimented with different types of packaging, and found that dried peas, flour and canned goods inside three jute bags could be dropped, and still usable. So early on April 28th Bomber Command notified German Command in Holland that low flying bombers would soon be flying over Holland to drop food supplies. German Command radioed back that any bombers appearing would be fired upon regardless of what they were carrying. British Bomber Command decided to take the chance and went ahead with the food dropping mission.
I can still remember my first Faust trip, or as we preferred to call it 鈥淥peration Spam鈥� to a spot just outside the Hague. We flew at 300 feet with about 30 seconds between planes. As we flew across the 鈥渄rop zone鈥�, about a dozen 88mm guns on the ground zeroed in on us and followed us across the field. Fortunately none of the bomb aimers or gunners made any false moves. It was scary, though, because shooting us down would be like shooting fish in a rain barrel. Remember too that this was still about ten days before the end of the war. This first trip was very spine tingling and nerve racking, but I am quite sure that no bombers were lost on this or any of the following Faust operations. It was interesting as we approached the city to have had a troop of German soldiers on bicycles pull to the side of the road, stand and watch us and wave to us as we flew over. It must have been apparent to them that the writing was on the wall.
It was apparent that we were getting a fantastic reception from the Dutch. They were everywhere: on street corners, roof tops, parks and all waving enthusiastically. During the next week, we made five trips to an unused airfield just outside Rotterdam, following the same route each time. A farmer at the turning point just south of the city had taken whitewash and printed in large letters on his field 鈥� TABAC SVP. All smokers on our crew and probably hundreds of others threw out cigarettes on our next trip, very likely making him a millionaire on the Black Market. Enthusiasm was rampant with the Dutch civilians. Dutch and British flags, as well as signs like 鈥淭hank you Boys鈥� and 鈥淭hank you RAF鈥� were prominently displayed and easily seen from the air.
For Christmas 1983, I received a gift, a fabulous book entitled 鈥淎 Liberation Album鈥� pertaining to the liberation of Holland, principally by the Canadian Army. A drawing in a chapter called 鈥淎 Different Cargo鈥� showed four engined bombers dropping supplies and it struck a very familiar note. A picture of the author looked somewhat familiar, and on reading the blurb, sure enough, it was Colin Friesen, another bomb aimer from 150 Squadron. We used to chum around and go on leaves together; in fact, I still have several pictures of us together as airmen.

LIBERATION. Three weeks had gone by since the raid on Heligoland, and German defences were crumbling rapidly on both the western and eastern fronts. It was increasingly apparent that the war was nearly all over bar the shouting. It was just a matter of deciding when Peace would be officially declared.
Doc was by nature an ebullient type of guy, and when caught in the spirit of excitement was a bit unpredictable. He often told our crew that if we happened to be flying when the news of peace was made official, he would loop the lanc to give us all a final thrill. I don鈥檛 know whether he would have attempted it or not, but personally, I was very glad to have been on the ground on May the 8th when the official announcement was made.
I will not attempt to describe the feeling experienced by myself, and I am sure many thousands of others, except to say that in a sense, you were almost lost and very confused to find that you had survived. I鈥檓 sure that I had hidden away in the back of my mind the feeling that I would never make it through to the end of the war. Really, I can鈥檛 recall very much of what happened in the ensuing couple of days, except that all regimentation broke down, rank was almost non-existant and everybody loved everybody. Much too much alcohol was consumed by many people, and severe hangovers were in evidence everywhere. Gradually calm and a bit of common sense started to show through, with a slow return to a degree of normality.
Just because the war was over our duties were not over. After V.E. Day (Victory in Europe Day), our Squadron turned to evacuating liberated prisoners of war from the continent. On may 11th we flew to Brussells to pick up recently released prisoners from German 鈥減risoner of war鈥� camps. A few were Canadians who were captured at Dieppe; most were British Army and Air Force who hadn鈥檛 been home since before Dunkirk. When we first heard that we were to be used for this assignment, and since none of the crew had ever set foot on the Continent, we had mutually agreed that on landing in Brussells we would find something U/S (Unserviceable) with the plane, something that would take a relatively short time to remedy.
Our plans for spending a few hours on the Continent dissipated quickly though, when we landed and discovered that the 鈥渞epats鈥� had already been assigned our plane, and were waiting for us in the dispersal area. I鈥檓 sure we all instinctively felt that, much as we wanted to spend a few hours in Brussells, it in no way could compare with the eagerness of those boys to get home, so we turned right round and came back to England. Those twenty four were, without doubt, the most enthusiastic passengers one could ever imagine. We made only this one trip, but we were certainly pleased to have had this pleasant experience. Never before had any of our crew gone flying without a parachute. In this case it was not practical to have parachutes for the passengers, and so we too left ours in the crew room. It did give me a strange sensation, though, almost like going out without being dressed.
Daylight formation flying with eleven other Lancasters over the City of Lincoln, and dropping practice bombs on the Donny Nook range on May 17th officially ended my flying role as a member of the R.C.A.F.. Life in the Air Force was certainly different now, and we knew that it would never be the same again under peacetime conditions.

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