大象传媒

鈥楢 Piece of Cake鈥�
A conversation with Rob Marchment
Wireless Operator W 鈥楤ill鈥� Wareham鈥檚
Story of Flying in Lancaster's at RAF Waddington in 467 Squadron

Part 1

How would the average day begin?

Well, you鈥檇 get up in the morning and go and have breakfast and wander down, it was a pretty, I wouldn鈥檛 say undisciplined, but you were left to yourself. You didn鈥檛 have a lot of 鈥榖ull鈥�. You just wandered down to the flights and went off to your various sections and hung about there. The Signals Officer was sitting behind the desk and the rest of you were just sitting there. We had cartons of raisins everywhere, from which we helped ourselves. We waited for the news of what was going to happen that day. The phone would ring at around about ten and, of course, he would pick it up. You were all sort of鈥� well, you can imagine, you were thinking: 鈥橭h, Christ, what鈥檚 the score?鈥� He鈥檇 say: 鈥榃orking.鈥� Right. So, of course, my friend and I would get back into the hangar, get out of the door, then we鈥檇 cycle down to the Spring caf茅. We did this every morning, whether we were working or not. We鈥檇 get the Daily Express, sit down with a cup of tea and do the crossword. Then we鈥檇 get back, go out to our aircraft. One of the wireless operator鈥檚 jobs was to change, every day, the accumulators for your intercom. They were glass and you had two of them. You disconnected them, having brought two fresh ones with you on your way out to the aircraft. Then, what I used to do was check my trig stop, to make sure we were all set up properly. You had different frequencies and you wouldn鈥檛 know what you would be using that night. Check that the equipment is working. Sometimes the pilot would think you would need to do and air test.
You might have had something done to one of the engines, some little thing done and you wanted to check that it was all right. You couldn鈥檛 just take it on yourself to do that, you鈥檇 have to get permission. You鈥檇 go on an air test and see that everything as OK.

What feelings would you have when the signals officer said: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e working tonight!鈥�?

The problem was that there was this intense fear. This was the truth. Obviously we didn鈥檛 show it. We all had different ways of hiding it. Some blokes would crack jokes. Others would tend to be very quiet. We all had to find our own way of trying to remove as much of that fear as we could. I鈥檒l give you an example. I found, walking down to the flights one particular night, on a particular raid, meant going past the station cinema. It was about seven o鈥檆lock in the evening and there were all these blokes and erks and whatever, queuing up to go the pictures. Now that was a completely normal peacetime sort of happening, wasn鈥檛 it? This made no sense. There we were, going down to pick up our gear. So from then on, I used to take a walk out of my way to avoid seeing them, because it only made me think. The other I noticed was that was that most chaps smoked. I didn鈥檛, even though cigarettes were free, of course, for operational aircrew. There was invariably a bomb trolley at our dispersal and it was useful to sit on it. We would be sitting on this thing, some of us smoking. The Medical Officer would come round, asking: 鈥淎nybody for wakey-wakeys?鈥� These were pills to keep us awake. I had them once, but all they did was keep me awake when I got back after a raid and just wanted to sleep! But there would be seven of us sitting on this trolley and there would be very little conversation. We鈥檇 maybe sit there for half an hour, waiting for the signal to climb in your aircraft and start up.
Briefing

At about 3.00 in the afternoon, the navigators and the pilots would go for a briefing. At bit later on, it would be the bomb aimers鈥� turn. We wireless operators would go to our section, where our signals officer would give us the frequencies that we were using that particular night. These would be on rice paper. Then it was back to the mess for a bit of tea.
Then all aircrew would go down the main briefing room, where the whole squadron would be briefed. It would start off with the Group Captain.

As you walked into this briefing room, there was an enormous map on the rear wall. You didn鈥檛 know where you were going until you got to this point. They鈥檇 pull back this curtain. You did know if you were going on a long trip, however, by the amount of petrol they put in the aircraft. Maximum petrol load meant you were going a fair way. So you had a rough idea if it was going to be a long journey. If it was 1500 gallons, you鈥檇 think 鈥榯he Ruhr鈥�, and you were usually right. But when you got to the briefing room, it still came as a shock whenever you looked up and saw Nuremburg, or Berlin.
The Old Man would just give a bit of a 鈥榩ep鈥� talk and then the Group Wing commander would say how many 鈥榳aves鈥� there would be and you would be told what wave you were in. He鈥檇 then give you the headings, the ETAs and heights for bombing and so on.

Then the weather bloke would come on and give you 鈥� well, it was usually pretty false or the opposite of what he said! If he said it would be clear over the target, you鈥檇 reckon it was going to be cloudy!

Then the Squadron Leader would discuss the tactics for the night. For example, if we were going to Berlin, we wouldn鈥檛 take off and go straight to Berlin. We鈥檇 change course at various points to try and fool the Germans as to where we were going to finish up. They wouldn鈥檛 know what town we were going to bomb. We would try and avoid areas of intense flak. And search lights. There were certain areas that were pockets of this stuff. The Squadron leader would explain all this to us. He would ask us to stick to certain headings. The reason for this was common sense, to try and avoid collisions. If we were coming in from a similar heading, it created a stream, whereas if we came in from different directions, it caused collisions, which used to happen occasionally. We were also told what height to bomb at. And then the heading out of the target. And that was it 鈥� it was down to us to get back home.

Bombing Up

Now you had to be bombed up. In my case, I would help the gunners take their guns back to their section where they would clean these six Browning 303s. Then they would take them back out to the aircraft again. Then it would be lunchtime and so we would have a bit of lunch.

What was it like when the signal came to get in and start up?
When the rockets went up for us to get in and start up, I found I just had this feeling in my stomach 鈥� the whole thing just turning over. We got into the aircraft in the same order: the bomb aimer first, then the pilot, the flight engineer, the navigator, the mid-upper gunner, the rear gunner and me. I found that I used to 鈥榯ighten up鈥� as I got in. I鈥檇 get into my position, climbing over the two spars, get to my desk and go through my bits and pieces. I鈥檇 check the frequencies for the night and so on.
Then he鈥檇 start the engines up. The noise was unbelievable, with those four engines! We would taxi round to the end of the runway, with all these aircraft getting ready for take off. In our case, it was thirty-six of them, two squadrons.

Did you ever do anything that might be called 鈥榮uperstitious鈥�?
We all did. The Pilot had a koala bear hanging up in the cockpit 鈥� he wouldn鈥檛 take off without it! I used to take a photograph of my wife, which we weren鈥檛 supposed to do!
Take Off

There would be this great crowd of people standing by the truck, the chequered wagon at the end of the runway, waving us on. There might be as many as fifty people from the station. We would turn on to the runway and wait for the bloke in the wagon to give us the 鈥榞reen鈥�. Every minute or two, there was somebody taking off.

I used to stand up in the astrodome as we took off and I used to look at the tail plane of the Lanc and think: 鈥渢hat鈥檚 going to bloody fall off one day!鈥� The bloke I used to fly with (PO V.A. Baggott) used to hold it down on the ground until the last possible minute to gain as much speed as he possibly could, so that the aircraft virtually took itself off! I used to think: 鈥渃ome on, get this bloody thing off the ground!鈥� The navigator used to call out the speed 鈥� 鈥�70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95鈥︹�� I thought: 鈥渃rikey, we must be coming up to those big sheds at the end of the runway!鈥� Then we could feel it come off the ground and we鈥檇 think that at least we were airborne! As soon as we鈥檇 got wheels up and flaps up, we鈥檇 go this radius of action.

The Outward Journey

I would now get back down into my seat, switch my gear on and check that everything was working all right. This in itself was a sense of satisfaction. Everybody would call up each other and make sure we were all in touch. Of course, I only had to look round the corner to see the navigator. We鈥檇 then go off, come back and then set course. We would have gained about 8,000 feet. We would be climbing all the time, at about 155 airspeed. We used to try and get up to about 20,000 feet, which we usually managed. Thus we were away from the light flak. By the time we got to the Dutch coast, if we were going that way, we would be at our desired height, because we had a good aircraft.

First Encounters

Once we got across the enemy coast, we would start to see aircraft going down鈥he attacks on us had begun. The Germans at that time, 1944, had overrun virtually the whole of Europe and so were everywhere. So they had fighters stationed just inside the French and Dutch coasts. There were night-fighters and flak batteries ready to meet us. So, as soon as we crossed the enemy coast as it was, it 鈥榮tarted鈥�! The night-fighters were always a menace. They were there all the time we were over enemy territory and back here, because they would sometimes follow us back! So these fighters were an ever-present danger, for which we had to keep alert all the time. It was this that kept us alive. We had to be on our guard from take off to landing. The adrenalin just flowed!

What was flak?
Anti-aircraft fire. You鈥檇 come back and find that you had tiny little holes in the aircraft. Tiny pieces of shrapnel would pierce the aircraft鈥檚 skin that you wouldn鈥檛 necessarily be aware of. Night fighters shot down most people. You had to be unlucky to get a direct hit by flak. It would look worse than it really was. You would avoid getting caught in the searchlight beams if you could. Once you got in a searchlight beam, it was a job to get out. One would get you and two others would come on to you quickly, because they were radar-controlled. You would dive, but it was difficult, because they had got to make only a small correction to pick you up again. We usually managed to get out if we got caught. You usually knew where these areas were. The whole sky was dark and then, suddenly, the night was illuminated with these searchlights. Hundreds of them. But we were aware of that. The navigator would say that we were coming up to the searchlight area and the pilot used to try and avoid it, because 鈥榠ntelligence鈥� knew where they were, of course. But you couldn鈥檛 always avoid them. Plus the fact that, obviously, the Germans would move them from time to time, as we did. So if you were caught, you dived, twisted and turned and hoped you could get out of it. And sometimes, you could hear the flak, like fireworks from a distance. The aircraft would shudder a bit, from the dispersal of the air, I suppose. But it was the night fighters who were the biggest threat. If you were over the target, night fighters very rarely shot you down, because it was too dodgy for these planes to encroach on that area. Because there was an awful lot of flak about and they would have been risking their lives unnecessarily. So over the target, it was flak and searchlights and a general sort of tension.
Survival strategies

Corkscrewing - the idea is that if you have an aircraft coming at you from behind, the theory is that you turn into it, so you are increasing the closing speed and then bring it back the other way.

How did that feel, to be in a corkscrew?
Murder! But I don鈥檛 think it mattered, because you are trying to save your life. It comes back to that, it鈥檚 self-preservation, so that sort of thing doesn鈥檛 bother you too much in those circumstances. But that was one of the things, well, the only thing you had, really. Some chaps used to throttle back, quickly, so the aircraft would almost shudder to a stalling speed. That was, in a sort of way, was a good manoeuvre, because a fighter coming at you, going at maximum speed, and suddenly something stops, he overshoots, you see. That did work. But most blokes used to go into a corkscrew.
Of course, all the way to the target, once you got over enemy territory, you weaved. You would turn one way and then the next, which would give the mid-upper gunner a chance to look down. Some didn鈥檛, but we did. So instead of flying straight and level, you turned it slightly. The mid- upper gunner, looking down, could spot enemy fighters, because they used to come up at you. These were just basic manoeuvres; they were the only things you could do, because you were a sitting duck, really.

Apart from anything else, with the size and the speed, whereas a night fighter, you were doing whatever, you were doing about a 150 knots with a full bomb load on. If you had a good navigator, you stayed in the stream, with safety in numbers, because their raiders would pick up the stragglers. If you got off course and you were out of the main bombing stream, it was quite easy for their equipment to pick you up and home a fighter in on you. If the navigation was good and you stayed in that main stream that made all the difference to your survival. Obviously it was common sense and we had a good navigator so we tended, most times, to stay on course and stay in the stream. But that didn鈥檛 always mean that you didn鈥檛 get attacked. But most of the time it meant that you could go on a raid and come back and apart from seeing other aircraft shot down, and obviously it was like Dante鈥檚 Inferno over the target area, you鈥檇 come back and hadn鈥檛 been attacked at all. There was flak, of course.

continued on "A piece of Cake - part 2"

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