大象传媒

I hate malted milk tablets. -

It was July 28th 1944. I was flight engineer onboard a Halifax heavy bomber of 192 Special Duties Squadron out of Foulsham, Norfolk. As a crew it was to be our 26th operation; this one a seven hour shift to Stuttgart. The theory that operational flying consisted of 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror was about to be proved. I slipped a Horlicks tablet into my mouth as I stepped up into the astro-dome, an extra pair of eyes searching the night sky was a bonus for the two gunners; at the same time I could do a visual check of the top surfaces of the aircraft. A movement along the trailing edge of the port wing caught my eye, surely the landing flap had not come adrift. As I concentrated my sight along the wing a sudden bump in the air, probably disturbed air from an aircraft up ahead; lifted the Halifax revealing another long tapered wing underneath us showing a black cross bordered in white. It was J.U.88, manoeuvring up under us, he was probably the type with a vertically mounted cannon designed to fire into the bomb bay of an unsuspecting maiden. "Engineer pilot, corkscrew port - GO!" my head hit the astro-dome my feet left the floor, the Horlicks tablet stuck to the roof of my mouth as the Halifax rolled to port and dived, followed by a vicious turn and climb to starboard. As we again rolled to port and dived, with me again in mid air I heard the tail gunner shouting "109 attacking from starboard rear." I looked upwards as the 109 rolled on to his back in an attempt to stay with us, his cannon shells and machine gun bullets flashed and sparkled across of our nose as Chippy the mid-upper raked him from stem to stern. Still inverted, now about one hundred yards in front of us, flame and smoke poured from his engine area. Suddenly his canopy jettisoned and the pilot dropped out of the cockpit; his parachute streamed, unfortunately slowing him enough for us to hit him with our port wing tip. His flying boot was embedded in the wing, the inside of our aircraft was a shambles of loose equipment, ham sandwiches and dripping coffee from broken flasks. That blasted tablet was still stuck to the top of a very dry mouth. I have hated the taste ever since. I suppose two minutes terror in a seven hour flight proves the 99% to 1% theory. We did another four trips to complete our thirty. At the age of 81 I still hate Horlicks, my dear wife loves it!

Maurice Flower.

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