大象传媒

We were woken before dawn and assembled in yhr Briefing Room. The target map and the route were covered, but all was revealed when the C C., Met Man and other senios officers arrived: we were going to the dreaded Ruhr - in daylight! The target was Scholven, an oil target requiring accurate bombing

I have no record of the take-off or landing times, but we were in the air for 4 hours 20 mins. Ken and I didour usual two-handed, two-man take-off routine, but it took the entire length of the runway for us to lift off. Then we climbed towards Goole, where we formed up with the rest of 4 group before heading towards yjr Dutch coast.

At that stage we were in reasonable formation with the rest of No.640, and as we flew into Holland I noticed Spitfires giving us cover well above our 19,000ft bomb height. Light flak started: it did not reach us but it continued until we got closer to Germany. Then the heavy flak started to burst around us, near enough for us to see the flame of the bursting shells. At that point, our fighter escort turned back.

Once we were over the Ruhr we were spread over a wide area. The sky was full of flak and scarceows. It looked impenetrable in daylight, because the dead bursts remained visable. By that time the target could be identified by a pall of black smoke. As we got nearer we heard the Master Bomber (0n the RT) singing "Three German Officers Crossed the Rhine". It was time for me to vacate my seat next to Ken and climb down into the nose, past Stan (wireless operator) and then Pete (navigator - both of whom hadonly a sound picture of the scene outside.

My view from the prone position behind the bombsight was spectacular as I started to direct Ken on our bombing run. The bombs had been fused as we crossed the Dutch coast, now it was necessary to fly straight (perfect for AA gunners) and in a shallow dive (less time over the target). The kite was being buffeted
by the flak as our objective slowly made its way along the glowing cross of the Mark XIV bombsight. My (necessarily) slow instruction to Ken were all that could be heard on the intercom, but I could feel the crew willing me to release our load

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