大象传媒

I returned to the UK by air and the next day proceeded to Normandy. HQ 72 Wing was already there, in tented accommodation in an orchard near Ste Croix, north of Bayeux. The war had interrupted the manufacture of Camembert cheese nearby and we were not sorry to move, some days later, to Le Mesnil, a few miles north of Caen. Soon afterwards the breakout from Normandy occurred and this opened up the possibility of placing Oboe and GH stations in the east of France, Belgium and Holland. Provisional choices of sites thought technically suitable had already been made, using maps and aerial photographs, but as always examination on the ground was also needed. This fell to me. It had to be done quickly, but there was one big problem: the war was fluid, and the positions of enemy and friendly forces were changing from day to day. The first site requiring inspection was in the east of France, a little east of Commercy, between Bar-le-Duc and Nancy. I set off, together with Flying Officer Smith, a Canadian, in a 15-cwt van loaded with petrol and rations sufficient for at least a week. We wore Army battle-dress, as Air Force blue was dangerously similar to German field grey. We found Paris in turmoil, it having just been liberated. East of Reims the long, straight Roman road undulated for mile after mile. Not a thing moved: no humans, cattle, pigs, dogs, cats or poultry were to be seen. It was eery, but there was only one thing to do: press on at all possible speed. As we approached Bar-le-Duc, some time after midday, I said to Smith "Let's stop and eat our lunch there, and call at the Hotel de Metz; I often dined there in 1939 and if Mme Jean is still there she is sure to know what is going on." I had not often seen the Hotel de Metz in daytime, but I remembered that it faced the canal, at a point where the road from Verdun crossed it. Nobody was to be seen in Bar-le-Duc and when we reached what I thought was the right building there was nothing to show that it was a hotel. I stopped outside it, whereupon, suddenly, we were surrounded by men carrying Sten-guns and wearing armbands marked 'FFI' (Forces Fran莽aises de 1'Int茅rieur). They looked hostile and demanded to know what we wanted. When I said I was looking for the Hotel de Metz, they looked even more hostile and sent for their capitaine. He arrived and asked why I wanted the Hotel de Metz. I replied that I had been stationed at Vassincourt in 1939 and wanted to know if Mme Jean was still alive and well; was this not the Hotel de Metz? That broke the tension, and he smiled. Yes, he said, this used to be the Hotel de Metz, but yesterday it was the headquarters of the Gestapo; Mme Jean was now living next door. When I rang the bell she answered it. There was a moment of non-recognition, then I was smothered with kisses. What she, a cordon bleu cook, made of the tinned treacle pudding that we left with her, I do not know. General Patton's tanks, we were told, were resting under cover in the for锚t communale of Commercy, and when we reached them the tank crews said they thought the site we wished to inspect, which was ahead of them, was probably clear of Germans, but they warned us to look out for low-flying FW 190 aircraft. In the event the site proposed for the Oboe station was not wholly suitable, but there was a suitable site nearby, from which it would be possible to control Pathfinder aircraft over Stuttgart. There was also a site nearby that was suitable for a GH station.

Early in September, 1944, 72 Wing headquarters moved to Mons, in the south of Belgium. I later chose a site for a GH station at Steendorp, across the river from Antwerp (which was still suffering attack by V2 missiles), another in the east of Belgium and yet another near Deurne, in the east of Holland.

It had irritated me when I discovered that after all the trouble we took to get Oboe and GH stations up and working as soon as possible after the sites provisionally selected had been freed by the Army, there would be a delay of two weeks or more before they were used operationally. I was told that this was because only the Army could determine the geographical position of a station with the accuracy required, and this took two weeks. I decided to investigate.

A bomb dropped by an aircraft in the main bomber stream did not often drop exactly on its intended target. Each bomb was subject to an error that had, in principle, three components. The first was that due to faulty determination of the geographical positions of the Oboe or GH stations. The second component was due to failure of the Pathfinder aircraft to be at exactly the right plan position, height, heading and airspeed when the target indicator bomb was released under Oboe or GH control. The third component was due to failure of each main-stream bomber aircraft to be at exactly the right plan position, height, heading and airspeed when it released the bombs that it aimed at the target indicator. I enquired about the magnitudes of these error components. The largest, I was told, was the third, with a standard deviation of about 500 yards; from this cause alone, 5 per cent of the bombs dropped could be expected to fall more than 1000 yards from their target. The accuracy of placing the target indicators, I was told, was very much better, especially under Oboe control, when it had a standard deviation that might be as small as 50 yards. As for the error in determining the positions of the Oboe or GH stations, it had been laid down that they should be determined with the maximum possible accuracy. I pressed for a quantitative answer and was told that the maximum possible accuracy meant to two decimal places of seconds of latitude and longitude. I did the arithmetic and found that this meant to about one foot. I exploded and poured scorn on the stupidity of whomsoever was denying Bomber Command the use of every Oboe and GH station for two weeks in which they could have been used, because the whole system had an inbuilt error standard deviation exceeding 500 yards and I could determine the position of each station to within about 10 yards in an hour, given a large-scale map and a hand-held compass; it was standard procedure overseas. My remarks were received in chilly silence by the regular Group Captain to whom they were addressed, but they were acted upon.

I did not discover until some days after I had made my critical remarks that the Group Captain to whom they had been addressed was the person who had laid down the requirement. For him it was the last straw and at the beginning of 1945 he got me posted back to 70 Wing, where I was warmly welcomed by the Group Captain in command. Departure from 72 Wing had been a blow to my pride, but by then more than five years had passed since my call-up and during that time I had had very few days off and very little leave, apart from convalescent leave. I needed a period of work at the pace that was normal in the UK but much gentler than that overseas. Furthermore, the war in Europe was clearly approaching its end, and the medical board had banned me from any further service in the Far East, so it was time to think about life after the war. I enjoyed doing what was required of me at 70 Wing, which consisted of little more than flying round Scotland and the Islands inspecting radar stations and, from the end of 1945, supervising the release of officers, airmen and airwomen to civilian life. In 1946 I followed them, returned to Cambridge and, seven years behind schedule, started research for a doctorate.

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