大象传媒

On July 31st, we were sent to attack Dusseldorf. The Halifax I had to take was 'B' for Bertie, the plane I took to Hamburg and now appeared seviceable again.
The night was dark but a rising moon took the edge off the darkness as we waited on the perimeter track to take-off. When the green light flashed from the ACP caravan, I made a final check with my crew as I called over the intercom: "OK, let's go"
Harry Greenwood, my flight engineer, was sitting beside me, ready to lock the throttles after I had pushed them fully open. Gathering speed, the runway lights sped passed as we rapidly approached the end of the runway. The speed was almost 100 miles per hour when I gently eased the control column back to lift the aircraft off the ground - nothing happened as the twenty eight tons of aeroplane raced on. We were nearly at the end of the runway before 'B' for Bertie became 'unstuck', clearing the airfield boundary with precious little time to spare. My sigh of relief was brief, the Halifax was very reluctant to climb.
During the next quarter of an hour, Yorkshire farmers, accustomed to the nightly roar of outward bound bombers, must have been shatered by the noise of our aircraft just above their rooftops. We were crossing the English coast at about 5,000 feet when I realised the machine was not performing properly. Calling Harry, I asked, "Our rate of climb is very poor for the boost and revs; what is wrong do you think?"
"I don't know Skipper. All engine temperatures and pressures are normal," was his reply.
"I will maintain present power and revs and hope it will improve," I said with little optimism.
We were about half way accross the North Sea and had reached a height of 8,000 feet, but our climb had been so sluggish I called the flight engineer again to ask if I should put the 'blower' in now.
"Yes Captain," he agreed.
I did not want to abort the mission, so operated the super charger and pressed on.
The moon - now high in the sky - lit the night, with it's eerie, bluish light, as we approached the Dutch Coast; ahead searchlights were criss-crossing the sky. We could not coax the Halifax any higher than 8,000 feet - less than half the usual height for crossing the enemy coast.
We had avoided the searchlights. I was about to tell the crew we would probably be unable to bomb Dusseldorf and would attack the alternative target, when there was a 'click' in my headphones - it was Sam Glasgow, my rear gunner:
"Captain, there's an aircraft about 1,000 yards - port quarter - probably a fighter."
I called my mid-upper gunner, McAuley.
"Mac., leave the fighter to Sam - you search the skies for any others"
A moment later, McAuley called to say that another fighter was coming in on the starboard beam. Sam called again:
"Fighter closing in, get ready TURN TO PORT-GO-GO-GO!"
As I pushed the aeroplane into a diving turn, yellow tracer shells streamed over the cockpit. The mid gunner's voice came over the intercom:
"Skipper - THEY@RE FIRING AT US!"
A split second later, all hell was let loose as shells exploded around us. I was looking at the instrument panel when a shell burst close behind it, filling the cockpit with smoke and the acrid smell of cordite. Death seemed certain and the thought flooded into my mind, how will Mickie and baby Diana cope without me?
I had lost two or three hundred feet in the dive and it needed considerable strength to pull the Halifax into a climbing turn to starboard. The firing seemed to have stopped, so I straighened out into level flight. The realisation that I had survived gave me a fierce, instictive determination to stay alive.
First, I had to determine the state we were in. Thank God the engines were still running, their defiant roar was music to my ears. I switched on the intercom to talk to the crew and found it was dead; this was a serious blow. The smoke cleared from the cockpit to reveal that several of my instruments were out of action - the directional compass, climb and glide indicator and, by far the most serious, the airspeed indicator.
The first crew member to appear, was Sargeant Miller, the bomb-aimer. We had to remove our helmet's and shout into each other's ears - above the noise of the engines - now our only means of communication. He said:
"Bob is badly hurt and bleeding from wounds to his wrists; I have put on a rough bandage."
Bob Pool, the navigator, had been in the forward compartment with the bomb-aimer during the attacks.
"Alright" I replied to Miller. "Will you see how the gunners are?"
He returned immediately to tell me that the flight engineer had closed the bulkhead, protective, steel door and this had been jammed by a shell. Both gunners were to the rear of this door, also beyond were the fuel cocks on which our petrol supply depended. Harry was working frantically to free the door, with his limited tools.
We were still flying towards Germany with our bomb load when Miller saw what he thought was an airfield below. We opened the bomb doors and released our load - hopefully on the enemy airfield. As I turned the aircraft on to a reciprocal course for England, I found that the rudder and elevator controls were not responding normally - they weren't positive and had a 'sloshy' feel.
The task of flying the crippled bomber back to England seemed insurmountable but I dismissed any idea about bailing out over Holland. My crew were a fine and competent bunch - I could depend on them. Harry had succeeded in freeing the jammed door and came to report on the scene in the back of the aircraft. Sam, our stalwart American rear-gunner, was uninjured and very wide awake in his turret, which had probably been damaged. He said later, "there was o hellava lot of ayer gettin'in!" The report on Mac was grim, Harry and John Miller had not obtained any response from Nac, still in his turret on top of the fuselage. They had managed to cut away his harness and lower his body on to the floor. What they saw almost sickened them; half his head was missing. It was fortuneate for the rest of us that a bullet, or shell, had spent itself on the bullet-proof glass fitted behind the pilot's head! By this time, Bob Pool, his wrists swathed in bandages, was sitting with ashen face on the step to the forward comparment.
The flight back, over the North Sea, now seems like a dream sequence. Without the air-speed indicator, I could only fly by 'feel'. Several times the plane became unstable, and it was only by pushing the stick forward to increase speed that I managed to avoid stalling the aircraft.
Bob, who had been primed with hot coffee, refused morphine to relieve the pain, so he could keep a check on the position

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