大象传媒

A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DIP IN THE BALTIC
Chapter 3

Meanwhile, with their mines sown, the surviving 5 Group aircraft turned north-west and thence home. While Malcolm came to terms with his wholly unknown circumstances, crews safely returned to base went through the routine process of post-raid interrogation by their Intelligence Officers. At Coningsby, the crews from 97 Squadron were going through the ritual over sweet tea and cigarettes. The Operations Officer at the time was W/C Guy Gibson VC, founding commander of 617 Squadron. The following extract is taken from No.97 Squadron's Operational Record Book for 16/17 August 1944 recounting the squadron's role in marking the mining area:

STETTIN SWINEMUNDE CHANNEL

One side of the channel has square buoys [sic] and the other conical buoys [sic]. At 01:01 the flare force came in and dropped their blind bombing apparatus over the channel.
Illumination was hardly necessary as the Germans had guessed what was happening and had criss-crossed the bay with searchlights. However the Controller W/C Porter and two deputies S/L Parkes, S/L Locke DFC RAAF who were down at 300 ft., decided to PRESS ON [emphasis in original text].
In the face of great batteries of light flak guns from all sides of the bay, and although they were coned the whole time, they located the buoys and flew down the channel, marking it with 2501b flame floats and dropping mines in between. By 01:15 W/C Porter machine had been badly hit, that he called up S/L Parkes on the VHF telling him he had "had it" and would have to bale out. He also wished everyone the best of luck.
A minute later, a W/T message was received from W/C Porter's aircraft for the main force to go in and drop their mines over the flame floats.
It is believed that his crew had every chance to bale out successfully.
W/C Porter, Parkes, Locke awarded immediate DSO and message of congratulations from the AOC.

In his account of the mining sortie written long after the war, F/L Blanchard, 57 Squadron Engineer Leader, recalled the background of the Swinemunde raid. In particular the abnormally low dropping altitude [300 ft], which caused considerable concern amongst the crews, obliged to operate at that height. All the aircrews mining off Swinemunde came from within No.5 Group and had been specifically selected for this potentially hazardous operation.

Blanchard wrote: "Our Station Commander was present at the briefing. I shall always remember him standing there, chipping in with `there will be ships there, big ships - and flak.' Not exactly confidence building! The port of Stettin was to be bombed from high level at approximately the same time as our mining was to take place."

The demise of the Master Bomber near Swinemunde was witnessed by F/L Blanchard. "WIC Porter of 97 Squadron went in to lay the flame floats, to mark the channel from Swinemunde to Stettin. One could see the light and medium flak firing at the marking force. Suddenly the Master Bomber was hit... I think he went in to the hills east of the channel. We were called in to bomb by one of the deputies. The skipper held the a/c steady for the drop and all six mines went away. The bomb doors were closed and we increased revs. and prepared to climb to miss the high ground at Swinemunde. At that moment another aircraft was on fire and going in - right in front of us." That aircraft was Stan Scutt's.

Even in the drama, moments of humour emerged. Blanchard's Lancaster mined at the prescribed 300 ft, but 30掳 of flap proved necessary to provide extra lift at the relatively low mine-dropping airspeed. On the return journey over Denmark at around 12,000 ft., the pilot remarked about the aircraft's sluggishness and poor airspeed. Only then did the penny drop that they had struggled westward across the Baltic, still with 30掳 of flap on!

Just inland from the Baltic coast, the incarcerated Malcolm Crapper was alone with his thoughts, contemplating how the interrogation that undoubtedly lay ahead might go. The RAF had a pretty thorough understanding of German interrogation techniques, and briefed aircrew accordingly. Would it be `good guy/bad guy' routine? Or sleep deprivation? Or courtesy and kindness? Or the `we know all about you already so what have we got to lose?' setup? Or fake Red Cross forms? Or possible physical violence? Probably a bit of most....
"The following afternoon I was marched, blindfold, into Swinemunde where a Luftwaffe car was waiting to take me to a nearby airfield. I had a day of solitary confinement to consider what fate had in store, as my expected interrogation didn't take place until the next morning.

"I was interviewed in the station CO's office, complete with the obligatory framed pictures of Hitler and Goering on the wall. The Commanding Officer was quite an imposing figure, with a very smart (I thought at the time flash) uniform and an array of medals. He sat behind a vast desk and when he spoke, it was in immaculate English. He was very easy going, what we would call laid-back today, and tried to put me at ease. Sit down, would you like anything to eat or drink? Loosen your tunic - there is no reason for unnecessary formality and it is quite hot, isn't it? As I undid my battledress blouse the black bread I had stashed had crumbled and fell all over the immaculately polished floor. Fortunately he found it amusing and asked 'Don't you like our bread?' This more or less set the tone as he made no attempt to interrogate me. He told me that my bomb aimer [Flying Officer Trindall] was in another cell close to mine. He added that another member of my crew was in hospital. He regretted that he could not tell me what had happened to the other four crew members...

" The next morning, a blindfolded FO. Trindall accompanied by a similarly blindfolded Sgt. Crapger were marched to the nearest railway station. Despite being unable to see, the two crew mates heard some noise on their journey, the like of which they had never before experienced. With the benefit of hindsight, Malcolm now understands why both he and FO Trindall were blindfolded. What they heard were almost certainly jet engines. Their captors were not taking any chances that somehow reports might be smuggled back to Britain about new German aircraft, seemingly without propellers.

The two captive airmen were embarked with guards on a local train. Fellow passengers included farmers' wives carrying boxes loaded with chickens and rabbits. Malcolm recalls his surprise that the women took not the slightest notice of the two RAF men: "they probably thought we were all Luftwaffe." The local train dropped Malcolm's party at a station where a mainline service sped them to Berlin.

The city had to be crossed by foot from their arrival terminus to the next staging point. Malcolm noted, "Although very badly damaged by Allied bombing, life in Berlin had an air of normality about it. We were taken by our guard to the German equivalent of the NAAFI under Amhater [sic] Station. Again, no-one took the slightest notice of us. It would have been quite nice had Frankfurt station shown us the same hospitality!"

Frankfurt station was indeed a very different cup of tea. The two RAF men were literally thrown into a dungeon with some badly wounded USAAF airmen. From Frankfurt the next stop was interrogation at Oberhausel. In their cells, the prisoners could hear the sound of artillery on the western front. It was a short-lived boost to morale, as they swiftly transported to the Polish border. Again, the sound of artillery was audible, only this time it was the weight of the Red Army engaging German forces.

A Prisoner-of-War camp at Bankau became Malcolm's `home' until January 1945. It was probably here that Malcolm was reunited with his Australian Mid Upper Gunner, F/Sgt Shields, who had recovered from the broken pelvis sustained when he landed in a tree, after baling out of their stricken Lancaster. The advancing Russian Army prompted the Germans to move their PoWs westward, on foot. Forced to march night and day with virtually no food and in severe weather conditions; it was an appalling experience. Malcolm forced himself to dig up with his bare hands and then eat frozen beet, in an effort to get some food inside himself. He suffered stomach cramps and other severe physical distress. The march ended at a camp in Luchenswalde [sic] some 20 miles south of Berlin.

The relentless progress of Soviet forces on Germany's eastern front led to some extraordinary command decisions. In April 1945, some thousand British airmen, including Sgt Crapper, were rounded up for transport to Hitler's redoubt. Their purpose? They would be held hostage, presumably to discourage allied bombing of the site. Thankfully, disruption of the rail network meant that neither trains nor routes were available and a return to camp was ordered.

Eventually the camp was `liberated' by the Russian army, but the allied servicemen were effectively held hostage by their liberators for use as bargaining chips. A deal was struck whereby the allied prisoners were exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners - whom the Russians promptly massacred once they had control over them.

The Aircraft Crash report for PB384 DX-F, 57 Squadron 17th August 1944 was completed by F/O Trindall with a brief addendum from F/Sgt Shields. The phrasing suggests the anecdotal information almost certainly originated in a prison camp.

F/O R. E. TRINDALL :
States his a/c was hit in the port outer engine and a set alight the pilot continued his operations Later the PILOT gave orders to abandon, and inflate Mae West. Trindall says
that he landed on dry land. Sgt Crapper who was third out and last person to leave a/c managed to swim ashore. F/Sgt Shields was badly wounded and is in hospital. Trindall was told by Germans the rest of his crew were dead.

F/SGT J. SHIELDS
When I baled out I landed very heavily among trees, being badly wounded and taken to hospital.

ON THE BEACH

Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Malcolm Crapper went on a holiday to Berlin and Eastern Europe. He recalls part of his coach journey: "We were on our way to Checkpoint Charlie. I recognised the entrance to Amlater railway station. It was the only building standing in a sea of destruction and dereliction."

With the breakdown and collapse of the Eastern Bloc came access to westerners to parts of Europe closed off for decades. In 1992, Malcolm Crapper, accompanied by his brother, travelled through Germany and into Poland. "After much searching, we eventually found the beach at Swinemunde. The one I had swum ashore in 1944. Forty-eight years on, and I was back. Naturally all the memories came flooding back, the intense flak, baling out, burning aircraft reflected in the sea.... The only thing we could possibly do after that was to travel to Poznan and pay our respects at the graves of the four who did not survive..."

APPENDIX
SGT. M. CRAPPER'S TOUR OF OPERATIONS WITH 57 SQUADRON,
JULY / AUGUST 1944

DATE TARGET COMMENTS SORTIES LOSSES LOSS RATE
1 18 July 1944 Caen Daylight 942 6 0.6%
2 18/19 July 1944 Revigny Night -French railway 109 24 22.0%
3 20/21 July 1944 Courtrai Night 302 9 3.0%
4 24 July 1944 Donges Evening 113 3 2.7%
5 25/6 July 1944 Stuttgart Night 550 12 2.2%
PERIOD OF LEAVE
6 6 August 1944 Bois du Cassan Daylight- V1 site. 107 3 2.8%
7 9/10 August 1944 Foret de Chatellerault Night 190 2 1.1%
8 10 August 1944 Bordeaux Oil depots 109 0 0.0%
9 11 August 1944 Givors Rail yards 179 0 0.0%
10 12/13 August 1944 Falaise Night 144 0 0.0%
11 14 August 1944 Falaise Daylight 805 2 0.2%
12 I S August 1944 Deelen NJG airfield Daylight 1,004 3 0.3%
13 16/17 August 1944 Swinemunde Sea mining. A/C FTR 89 5 5.6%
TOTAL 4,643 69 1.5%

Sources: Logbook of Sgt M Crapper, 57 Squadron
The Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook & Chris Everitt

Note:
As a point of interest, the `compound loss rate' for the thirteen operations that made up Malcolm Crapper's tour is calculated as 35.4%. This can be interpreted as a survival probability of 64.6%. i.e. nearly a two in three chance of coming through these thirteen ops.

This contrasts with the winter period 1943/4 when a thirteen operation series offered a 56% chance of survival. In the period January to March 1944 a thirteen op series, which includes the raids on Leipzig and Nuremberg, where losses were exceptional, the odds fell to 48%, less than an even chance of reaching thirteen completed operations.

On average, Malcolm operated every 2.2 days during the 29 days between his first and last operational flights. This compares with a 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron Flight Engineer who operated between 20 October 1943 and 24 April 1944. His completed tour took 187 days, with an average of one operation every six days. One explanation for the significant differences is that the latter was involved in the Battle of Berlin and the Bomber Offensive against German cities over the winter of 1943-4, and the weather was a major factor in limiting Bomber Command's ability to operate. Malcolm, on the other hand, operated in the summer of 1944 when weather was seldom, if ever, a constraint on operations. Furthermore the ability of the Luftwaffe to mount defensive sorties had passed its zenith and daylight operations became viable for the RAF `heavies'.

These statistics are only used to illustrate how the balance of the bomber war shifted in a relatively short period. They cannot reflect the unpredictability of a flak barrage or the night vision of an air gunner or the reflexes of a pilot. The most telling statistic, if indeed it is a statistic, is that for the crew of Avro Lancaster PB384 DX-F the number thirteen did prove to be unlucky. But as Malcolm Crapper freely admits nearly sixty years on from the events over, and in, the Baltic Sea, he could have been a lot more unlucky.

In memory of:
Flt. Lt S. L. Scutt,
F/O A. Stienstra,
P/O J. Farnhill
and Sgt C.A. Harris

Pr-BR

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