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.

Having arrived at Chedburgh the pilot, Pilot Officer Mac McDonald, had to do two trips over Germany before he took us, his crew. We called this 鈥渟econd dickie鈥�, second pilot trip. We were flying Sterling Bombers and were briefed to go to the Fresian Islands and drop mines off there. The following night we went to the Bay of Biscay to drop mines. We were told to go inland and do a Dead Reckoning run out from the land and dropped our mines. But instead of going inland we located our pin point position on the map and flew direct to there without going over the land and dropped our mines. When we came back there was one of the intelligence officers who reckoned we hadn鈥檛 been there at all, because we were back early. He doubted our word and thought we had dropped our mines in the sea and come home. We did quite a few other missions in the meantime to Gilsenkirchen, and the Ruhr and several other locations. We then went on bombing missions to Hamburg, four times in the one week. Four times in the one week. During the last trip to Hamburg we ran into an electric storm in the North Sea, you鈥檝e never seen anything like it, St Elmer鈥檚 fire around the props and St Elmer鈥檚 fire on all the wires. We were really lit up. You have no idea what it is like, you can only go up or down to avoid an electric storm, there was no radar to help you fly around it. Mac the skipper said, 鈥淲e鈥檒l have to turn and go back. We couldn鈥檛 make it through this, it鈥檚 getting too bad.鈥� The wee Mid Upper Gunner said, 鈥淣ow if you turn back, you know what they鈥檒l say about us, they鈥檒l call us LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre) again, after the Bay of Biscay incident. Mac says, 鈥淲e鈥檒l go a bit further and see how we get on.鈥� We were still getting the electric storm. We flew on and on until we saw a hole in the cloud and came through the hole and pin pointed the River Elbe. We flew down the River Elbe and bombed Hamburg. When we came back towards base, Mac called up 鈥淲O WILLIAM, may we land?鈥� 鈥淟and right away.鈥� came back the reply. There was nobody in the circuit or anything. So we landed. The ground crew asked us where we had been. We said, 鈥淲e鈥檝e been to Hamburg.鈥� The ground crew said nobody else went, they all turned back, because of the weather, and we were the only crew who went. Two days after that Mac was awarded the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross). I had never been up in an aircraft, until I met my pilot; I had only had 40 hours flying experience at that time. Can you imagine what it must have been like, to face an electric storm with the St Elmer鈥檚 fire on the props and fuselage? I was scared stiff, scared stiff. We bombed Hamburg four times that week, we were still able to see the fires burning in Hamburg when we left the coast, and Hamburg is quite a distance inland. I think there were thirty thousand people killed in those raids. It was terrible, thirty thousand. The third night that Hamburg was bombed that week, was the first time the air crews used 鈥淲indow鈥�. Window was strips of aluminium foil, tied up in bundles and you chucked those out of the aircraft at a set rate per minute, and the predictive radar thought these were aeroplanes. They then caused the search lights to be shone all over the sky and provided distraction for the aircraft. Of course the more nervous you got the faster the bundles of foil were chucked out. The bundles of foil fell at the same rate as an aircraft when they opened out, and the radar was wavering all over the place because of the confusion they caused. I think the British were scared to use it before the Hamburg attacks because the Germans could also have used it also. That was the first time that method of confusion was used by the RAF, on the third night of the Hamburg attacks. It was used many more times during the war, and all the squadrons used it on the Hamburg attack, that night. These attacks were carried out during July 1943.

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