大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer on behalf of Pilot Officer John A. Martin DFC (retired) Larne, N. Ireland and been added to the site with his permission. Mr Martin understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

One night I was in the Sergeant mess along with three mates having a small celebration. We had arranged that in case I had any difficulty getting home, two of my mates would ensure that I got there safely. Wireless Operator Gamble came into the mess and thought that the two mates were going to assault me outside. Gamble tried to pull them away to save me. One of the two lifted a five gallon drum and hit Gamble a blow on the forehead with it, a scar he carries to this day. Because of the injury Gamble couldn鈥檛 fly with us the next night when we were briefed for an attack on Munchengladbach. I was sitting up in the second dickies seat (co pilot) and Mac McDonald, the pilot said, 鈥淭he flack seems heavier on the north of the town, I think we鈥檒l go in from the south and then we鈥檒l dive out of the heavy stuff.鈥� Wireless Operator Gamble wasn鈥檛 with us that night, and as soon as we went in from the south the flack stopped in the north and opened up on us in the south. The flack shot out our 鈥楪鈥� box, which was our navigation aid, they shot out our identification indicator, which signalled 鈥榝riend鈥� or 鈥榝oe鈥�, there was other electrical equipment damaged, but we couldn鈥檛 do anything about it. We got away from the flack and were on our way home, we hadn鈥檛 a notion where we were. We thought we were crossing the English coast when the Dover Gunners started shooting at us with 鈥榟ose pipe flack鈥� (a type of tracer ammunition). This flack was coming up all round us. Mac told me to fire off the colours of the day (an emergency procedure in case of radio loss). I got the gun out to fire the colour of the day, but the gun slipped and fired the colours down inside the aircraft. We turned away from the coast and tried going round again, but again the Dover Gunners opened up with more flack, so we shouted at them, 鈥淢ayday, mayday. Mayday, Mayday.鈥� The ground forces then put up a cone of searchlights over an airfield at Ford where we were able to land. At the same time Gamble was waiting in our own Control Tower for us to come back and he was most distraught thinking that we had been hit by ground fire and crashed. We had no radios left working as we crossed the English coast. That was the only trip Gamble missed.

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