大象传媒

I joined the RAF as a rear gunner. It was lonely and could be cold, but you didn't think of that. My job was to look out for attacking fighters and I didn't rest for a minute. Don Street was the pilot, the navigator was Dave Grant, a Canadian. Douglas Boothby was the wireless operator and Charles Waghorn was the flight engineer. Two squadrons were stationed at Skellingthorpe and there was friendly rivalry and lots of pranks such as hiding the station bell and hoisting underwear from the WAAF clothesline onto the flagpole.

A lot of men had lucky charms or performed some action which they thought would bring them safely home again. I had a fox mascot, I used to take him with me and put the name of the target on him. The crews hated change and would be uneasy if one of the crew had to be substituted. Some men blamed the Pathfinders for the problems with the raid on Mailly as they used a different type of marking.

We were driven out to the planes in buses driven by WAAFs - who virtually ran the station. They would wait up with cocoa and bread and cheese when we returned from a raid.

We were more than two thirds through our tour when the raid on Mailly was announced. It was May 3rd 1944. The target was a camp occupied by the Panzer Division. Many later considered it to be the first operation in the lead up to D Day. It looked like a straightforward bombing raid and no problems were expected. Some even referred to it as a milk run. But when we approached the target I was taken aback to hear that a Lancaster ahead of us had exploded and that there were fighters amongst the bombers. When the navigator announced 'coming to target', the bomb aimer took over. We were the last aircraft to bomb and were aware of scenes of devastation around us. We saw another Lancaster explode on our starboard side and there were still German fighters around us. Because I was rear gunner, I was the last airman to leave Mailly. It wasn't until next morning that we found out how many men and planes had been lost. Our Squadron (61) was lucky, they all returned, but 50 Squadron from Skellington lost 4 Lancasters. Altogether 42 planes and 258 airmen were lost.

Problems with communications had caused a delay in the order to bomb. In some cases the radio frequency was jammed by an American broadcast. They delay was disasterous. Eventually 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped in 20 minutes and the camp was completly destroyed, but at a very heavy cost.

You can read more about the raid and reminiscences by those involved in 'Not Just Another Milk Run..' written by Molly Burkett and Geoff Gilbert, published by Barny Books in 2004, isbn 19031 72519.

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