- Contributed by听
- CSV Solent
- People in story:听
- Ron Bravery
- Location of story:听
- Waddington
- Background to story:听
- Royal Air Force
- Article ID:听
- A7385754
- Contributed on:听
- 29 November 2005
This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jeanne Collier and has been added to the website on behalf of Ron Bravery with his permission and he fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
The Day that my Number Nearly Came Up
Life at RAF Waddington in 1943/4 was quite a busy time with the night bombing offensive at its height. It was home to two RAAF Lancaster squadrons, numbers 463 and 467. I was a Radar Mechanic attached to 鈥淎鈥 flight 467 squadron. One of the last jobs before take off was the routine of arming the detonators within the IFF box so that, if the crew had time, they could destroy the secrets within the box if they had the misfortune to be shot down in enemy territory. The task involved connecting a test lamp to the detonator plug and testing, in turn, each of the three firing positions before removing the lamp and plugging the detonator connector into the IFF box.
On the particular day in question, we were short of bods so I offered to do a solo run with the aid of a very long lead so that I could monitor the test routine at the same time as pressing the firing buttons. All went well and I sat in the WOPS seat to sign the form 700. I had noticed that an electrician was also in the cockpits checking the bomb fusing circuits in a similar fashion and took no notice that an electrician was also in the cockpit checking the bomb fusing circuits in a similar fashion and took no notice of him at all. Sunddenly, there was a judder within the aircraft and a thump underneath the kite and I can still remember a white faced spark exiting the aircraft and yelling at me 鈥淚鈥檝e dropped the bl鈥.dy bombs for god sake run for your life!鈥 This I did with even greater speed than the said sparks and lept into a ditch near the dispersal point.
I surfaced a few minutes later and witnessed a group of armourers rolling a 4000 lb 鈥渃ookie鈥 from under the aircraft and collecting several bundles of incendiary 鈥渟ticks鈥 to place in a neat pile away from the dispersal. I didn鈥檛 stop to pass the time of day but I often wonder if the culprit ever owned up and was suitably reprimanded.
How fortunate I was that the bombs were not fused and required to be dropped from a height before the fusing system operates.
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