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This story was submitted to the People’s War web site by a volunteer on behalf of Harold Swain and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

HAROLD'S WAR OPERATIONS — PART 1.

NB. All figures for damage to German property and casualty figures were given by the local German authorities at the time.

Main source: the Bomber Command War Diaries-An Operational Reference Book 1939-1945. Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt (Midland Publishing Ltd 1996).

28 February/1 March 1943 - St Nazaire.

On the 28th of February, at 7.45pm the engines of Stirling number W7429 roared as the plane eased into the skies, taking Harold on his first night time operation over enemy territory. The aircraft was one of a fleet of 152 Lancasters, 119 Wellingtons, 100 Halifaxes, 62 Stirlings and 4 Mosquitoes, on its way to bomb the U-boat pens and town of St Nazaire.

As a result of the mounting casualties from German U-boats the war cabinet gave an order for area bombing of U-boat bases on the west coast of France. These included Lorient, Brest, La Pallice and St Nazaire. The purpose was to destroy their maintenance facilities, power, light and communications and other resources upon which they depended. The startling aspect of this order was that Bomber command was to deliberately area bomb French towns with inevitable civilian casualties.

In all of the raids damage to the U-boat pens was negligible. After bomber command's last attacks on them in 1941 the Germans had started to cover the pens in huge concrete roofs. These were now complete and easily resisted the blast from the bombs dropped on them. This could not be said of the town of St Nazaire, which was damaged considerably. Local reports say that many bombs fell into the port area and that 60 per cent of the town was destroyed. 29 people are reported as being killed and 12 injured; it is presumed that most of the local population had left the town.

Harold and his crew arrived back at Oakington, at 12.50am, safe and sound. Their introduction to war ops had been a relatively easy one. The same cannot be said for the crew of the two Lancasters, two Wellingtons and one Stirling, which were destroyed on the trip, representing a loss rate of 1.1 percent. A figure that would give Harold a very false impression of what he was to face in the future.

After this raid even the Admiralty were beginning to realise that little more could be achieved in this strategy. As far as Arthur Harris was concerned the St Nazaire raid was just another interruption to the real purpose of the bombing war - to bomb Nazi Germany into submission.

3/4 March 1943 — Hamburg.

Just three nights after the trip to St Nazaire, on 3rd March, Harold was back in his wireless operator's chair waiting for his first operation over Germany. He and his crew were about to fly to the heavily defended city of Hamburg. Harold was to carry out more war operations in March 1943, a total of seven, than in any month of his tour of operations. Bomber Command was no respecter of inexperience.

Hamburg was Germany's most important port. Many heavy industries were situated in and around the port. As far as the German war machine was concerned it's greatest asset was the huge shipyards, which included those of Blohm and Voss, where the battleship Bismark had been built.

That evening 417 aircraft took off from airfields all over England. Harold's Stirling left Easington at 6.15 and would be in the air for just over six hours. The Pilot, Warrant Officer Zee, joined the flight stream of aircraft and headed out across the North Sea in the direction of Denmark, crossing the English coast at Hornsea. The enemy coast was crossed at Westover where the Path Finder For ce (PFF) dropped white datum markers. The intention was to drop further route markers, in yellow, but these markers were probably too far to the west. Most crews saw that the raid was going to be a disappointment as they searched for dripping green or red dripping candles of target indicators.

In theory, Hamburg was an ideal target for using H2S. The fact that it was on the coast made it clearly defined on the screens. Unfortunately practice does not always follow theory. Whilst visibility over the target was clear the Pathfinders made a mistake, possibly thinking that the H2S indications of mud banks in the Elbe, which had been uncovered by the low tides, were sections of the Hamburg docks. Consequently, of the main force bombing fell 13 miles downstream from the centre of Hamburg, around the small town of Wedel. Despite this, some bombs did fall on Hamburg, killing 27 people and injuring 97. About one hundred separate fires had to be extinguished by the fire authorities. Sgt Harold McLean, in the rear turret of a 428 Squadron Wellington noted the burning oil tanks in the docks and had time to count no less than sixty-six searchlights trying to ensnare the British bombers in their beams.

The damage at Wedel included a large naval clothing store burnt out as well as several important industrial concerns destroyed in Wedel's harbour. This illustrated the fact that, even when the target was missed, war production facilities were often hit.

Ten aircraft crews were lost that night, more people killed than in Hamburg who were being rained on by hundreds of bombs. Harold's aircraft was damaged by flak splinters over the target. But fortunately none of the crew was injured. They landed back at Easington, at12.20am.

THE BATTLE OF THE RHUR.

Harold was about to become part of what has become known as the Battle of the Ruhr. It was part of what Harris referred to as his "main offensive." Which lasted from the spring of 1943 until the spring of 1944. Through the previous winter he had been building up the strength of Bomber Command and experimenting with new tactics and equipment. Now, at the beginning of March he was ready to launch an unprecedented attach on the German industrial heartland.

His concept of "battle" was based on the idea of concentrating the main strength of Bomber Command on one target until it was destroyed. It is probable that he had Berlin in mind as the prime target, but the lengthening days and the failures of H2S, to date, did not yet make this a practical proposition. Instead, he devoted his energies to the Ruhr.

The Ruhr Valley was rich in bitumous coal to the extent of 75% of all the coal produced in Germany and because of this it became the home of the most important heavy industries and metallurgic factories, including Krupp, Rheinmetall, Hoesch and Ruhrstahl. It was regarded as the armoury of Germany that kept the Nazi war machine going. But it had one great weakness. It was the area of Germany closest to England, which the Germans respected by arming it with formidable defences. The searchlight and flak batteries around the area were already the most formidable in Germany. And the comprehensive early warning radar system of Freyas supplemented by Wurzburgs for tracking and local plotting associated with controlled interception techniques was being used.

As far as the Allies were concerned, the area's geographical proximity to Britain had two advantages. First, they did not have to wait until the long nights of winter before it could be attacked. Second, the job of finding the target and marking it accurately was easier for the Pathfinders. Over the bombing over the Ruhr would bring almost complete success, mainly because all of the cities in the area were within Oboe range. The Oboe beams would be set up over each target and guide the Pathfinder Mosquito’s to that point in the sky where they had to drop their target indicators. But, the Mosquito’s could only provide primary marking and they were followed by Harold and his colleagues in the heavy pathfinder squadrons, flying straight and level through searchlights and flak, to drop their markers of a different colour. The main force had orders to bomb on the mosquito markers, if visible, the backing up markers if not. Very rarely did the heavy Pathfinders leave a gap in the marking.

During the battle of the Ruhr the heavy bomber squadrons sustained heavy casualties over a long period of time. But, their courage and perseverance never wavered which, perhaps, supports the old dictum that a force can sustain heavy casualties as long as successful results can be seen.

5/6 March 1943 — Essen.

The opening raid in the Battle of the Ruhr was against Essen. At the centre of the city was the home of Krupps and Krupps, the famous armaments manufacturer. Harold left Easington at 7.75pm and joined the crews of 442 aircraft (157 Lancasters, 131 Wellingtons, 94 Halifaxes, 52 Stirlings, 8 Mosquitoes) making their way over the North Sea towards the Dutch coast, north of Amsterdam. The attack would be made from the north of Essen, avoiding the flak belts of the towns in the Ruhr valley.

The only tactical setback to this raid was that 56 aircraft turned back early because of technical defects and other causes. 3 of the 'early returns' were from the 8 Oboe Mosquito marker aircraft upon which the success of the raid depended. PFF aircraft opened the attack by dropping yellow navigation markers at a point 15 miles short of the target, where the Main Force aircraft were to begin their run-up. Then the 5 Mosquitoes, which did reach the target area, marked the centre of Essen perfectly with red target indicators. W7529 and the remainder of the Pathfinder backers-up also arrived in good time and carried out their part of the plan by constantly dropping green target indicators during the 38 minutes it took the Main Force bomber stream to pass over Essen. The whole of the marking was 'blind', so that the ground haze, which concealed Essen, did not affect the outcome of the raid. The Main Force bombed in 3 waves — Halifaxes in the first wave, Wellingtons and Stirlings in the second, Lancasters in the third. It was a highly concentrated attack putting eleven bombs a minute onto the target. Two thirds of the bomb tonnage was incendiary, and one third of the high-explosive bombs were fused for long delay. No less than 362 aircraft claimed to have bombed the main target. However, when all the evidence had been gathered in, Bomber Command calculated that only 153 aircraft, some 40% of the attacking force, had dropped their bombs within 3 miles of the target. A small numbers of bombs fell in 6 other Ruhr cities. Despite this, reconnaissance photographs showed 160 acres of destruction with 53 separate buildings within the Krupps works hit by bombs.

Warrant Officer Zee once again brought his plane home safely but, once again, the aircraft was damaged by flak splinters. 14 other aircrew (3.2per cent of the force) were not so lucky. 4 Lancasters, 4 Wellingtons, 3 Halifaxes and 3 Stirlings were shot down on this operation.

8/9 March 1943 — Nuremberg.

None of Bomber Command's offensives could be directed exclusively on one target area. This would have allowed the Germans to concentrate their night fighter and flak defences. In the four months of the Battle of the Ruhr no less than 43 major raids were mounted. Two thirds of these were on the Ruhr but the remainder were scattered throughout Europe. This strategy prevented the concentration of defences on the Ruhr.

Harold's next operation was on the city of Nurenberg and was to be one of his longest flights, 8 and a half hours. He had already spent some time in the air that day when the crew did some practice bombing. Seven and a half hours later the crew were back in the Stirling waiting for the flare indicating time for takeoff.

The target, this time, was well beyond the range of Oboe and the raid had to be marked by a combination of visual means and H2S, carried in 36 PFF aircraft, 14 of which were to use H2S to drop illumination flares over the target. The aiming point was then marked by the rest dropping green Target Indicators. This was to be followed by the PFF "backers up" dropping red Indicators. The Main Force would then follow on, in 3 waves, attacking the target within 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, things did not quite go to plan and the results were disappointing. Pathfinders had no moon to help them and, although there was no cloud, they found that haze prevented accurate visual identification of the target area. In addition, a number of the H2S sets did not work and some PFF had to drop their Indicators blindly. Photos suggest that only 142 aircraft dropped their bombs within 3 miles of the target However, despite this, the authorities in Nuremberg reported that more than 600 buildings were destroyed and nearly 1400 damaged. These included the M.A.N, factory, which produced diesel engines for V-boats, the Siemens factories and electrical plant and railway installations.

The return journey to Nuremberg had been by a circuitous route. On the outward leg, Zee had piloted his plane over the English Channel, heading across the northern tip of France and southern Belgium. Continuing through Luxemburg, and then turning due east across Germany, before turning south for the final run to Nuremberg. Instead of turning back to head for home the flight stream continued south, passing west of Munich and into northern Italy before turning to west into Switzerland. From there it was a straight run across France back to dear old Blighty. Harold got back to Easington at 3.45am the next morning. This time the aircraft was unscathed.

Eight aircraft were lost on this operation, including one from Harold's Squadron. Stirling R9270 MG-T crashed at Les Souhesmes 16km SW of Verdun, killing all the crew.

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