大象传媒

I think it must have been about December 1939. I was aged 22, and was flying Hamdens with 49th Squadron from Scampton. One night I returned to the mess about midnight. I was greeted by the C/O Wing Commander Wally Sheen with the words 鈥淕et to bed, briefing at 06:00鈥�. At the briefing it turned out that we were to try and bomb the Sharnhorst which was thought to be sailing on route born Keil to the Norweigan Fjords. The raid was to be carried out by 12 of us from 49th and 12 from 44th Squadron at Waddington.

We took off about 7.30, around day break. The plan was to search the Fjords , find the ships, and land back at Kinloss in Scotland. We set off in our formation, with the 44th vaguely following us. In those days, only the lead aircraft navigated, the rest of just followed the leader. We came out of the cloud cover to see the Northern coast of Denmark, so turned left a bit and headed up to Norway. We saw a fjord, and decided to go up the second one 鈥� only to meet the 44th coming back down it. We continued up the coast, until we eventually turned for home. We had no idea where we were, so we circled a fishing boat that we saw. They were terrified, and all hid. Well, then we saw Holy Island, and decided to land in the first field we came to. We were met by a farmer who offered to look after the plane while we were picked up by the army. They found us somewhere to stay and a quantity of ale! The next day we went back to the craft and found we had enough fuel to reach the local airfield (). Here we were told that the others had all returned apart from one plane which hit the local church. We refueld and returned to Scampton. The Waddington group had landed at the Firth of Forth, where the local Spitfires had been warned to expect them. That didn鈥檛 stop two spitfires opening fire on the returning planes, shooting one of them down.

This was typical of early war experience 鈥� flying in formations and getting lost.

I flew 50 raids in all. After the introduction of the Pathfinders things got much easier!

I did take part in one 1000 plane raid to Cologne. I was temporarily in charge of a training flight at Scampton at the time, training crews to transfer from Manchesters to Lancasters. We got the call that a special raid was on, and that all crews were to be involved. Well I didn鈥檛 get a Lancaster, I ended up with an old Manchester. Just as we were about to leave, the Squadron Commander came and joined him as his plane was u/s.

Cologne was moonlit that night, and had been well marked. We did a lot of damage that night, but not to the Cathedral. The plane got coned in the searchlights, and so I had to drop the wing and dive in a spiral to about 1000ft. The C/O wasn鈥檛 to pleased with me as he didn鈥檛 have anything to hold onto!

I was once hit, early on in the war while flying the Hampdens. I think we were on the way to Berlin, at least somewhere over Germany. The rear gunner, who in the Hampden was underneath the plane, announced that we were on fire. He then amended this to say that it was only petrol fumes. I checked the tanks, and three were empty. We turned back and landed near Norwich. I met a chap there who was an air gunner in his 40鈥檚. He was ex-army, but still insisted on flying. He found me a bed for the night and declared that he was off next morning to London for Mass. Unfortunately he didn鈥檛 survive the war. I found out later he had been shot down by our own gunners over Hull.

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