大象传媒

Hubert (Hughie) Wagner Was Born 1917 While his Parents Were In Malaya, He went to Public School In Cheltenham and on to University in London as a medical Student until the outbreak of war in 1939, Although in the reserve occupation, But he wanted to join up for real. After a little difficulty, He was able to Terminate his Studies and Join the R.A.F. as a member of the aircrew. This progressed onto serving as a Pilot and serving with 206 Sqn ans 166 Sqn. During Tours he was sent to Instructors flying school, after passing out he was posted to R.A.F Kirmington when it was A.F.S. Later he was posted on to instruct on Gliders, even though He had never been sent to the Glider instructors school at Thame.
After the war Hugh return to the medical profession, gained hons. in Physiology and served as a doctor.

Sadly Hugh Passed away in March this year(2005) but previously before he would get to know of the internet, Hugh had written the following; How that in 1944 whilst leading the second daylight wave on a V1 launch site at St Maximin,near Creil. We were right on line for the final stages of the run, My Bomb aimer was instructing to "hold her steady Skip" it was a perfect line up, a Lancaster on my starboard broke formation to avoid the accurate German Ack-Ack, That plane gained about 200ft and eventually drifted right over us, the rest of the formation closed up F/O Jobson was formatting on my port wing, so close I could plainly see his smiling face! My engineer Sid Witham brought to my notice the resence of that Lancaster above. (I was concentrating on keeping the plane very steady on our final run-in to the target as we wanted to get a "hat-trick" i.e. a third "best photo" of a direct hit of the bomber force, our previous two "best photos along with recorded direct hits were on La Havre submarine pens, for which we were presented enlargement photos that were also printed in the Newspapers in England) I contemplated breaking up the formation but realised that this would have presented a formidable task, and my crew were against it saying that they were probably closer to danger on the night raids but could not see it. I had told My Engineer Sid to fix his parachute before going down to the nose to throw out the radar-jamming silver strips, Sid gave me a quizzical look, raised his eyebrows in surprise but relented when I persisted, pulled his chute from under his seat and patted it and again moved his lips as if to say "now, are you satisfied"

We were loaded with 7 pairs of 1,000lb bombs, As we released our bombs, I managed to glance up and counted four pairs of these sleek armour piercing bombs in front of our plane, one of the fifth set landed on our wing root, tearing off the wing and both engines, another bomb hit us midships and
tore a hole through the fuselage from top to bottom. Another bomb hit F/O Jobson plane slicing off his outer engine, he managed to remain airborne for another 10 minutes before crashing finally being captured. When we lost the wing the plane went into a very fast spin and most of us were jammed in one way or another. I saw Sid in the nose but could not get myself free, my head bleeding profusely, my leg jammed between the controls. When I saw the ground, the trees etc, and had given up all hope of getting out, Sid managed to free the hatch door, and a tremendous blast of air seemed to steady the spin enough for my leg to break free and slithered down the stairway, bumping into Sid and shoot out of the gaping hatch, I looked up to seem my parachute severely torn a bomb had also passed through it leaving me with only half of a parachute and knew I would be hitting the ground in seconds, even so during that time I knew someone was firing into the parachute canopy as it kept on tearing along the holes until it would reach a seam and stop. I curled myself up and waited for the impact the ground was not visible due to the enormous pall of smoke and dust along with other debris thrown up. At the time of impact I was only aware of the enormous blast of hot wind,earth and stone hitting me, a 1,000lb bomb had exploded directly below me that force of the blast must have stopped my inevitable inertia into the ground, the ground on which I landed was very hot, I reached to release my parachute harness but the force of the blast had completely ripped it off and much of my uniform was torn, I knew I had to get out of the target area, it was in fact then I realised I was in the bomb crater as it was very difficult to crawl up the steep sides, when I got to the top I was shocked to find myself right beside the launching ramp of a V1 rocket, there were some even visible stack against a wall without their wings. I knew there would be two more waves of bombers and that I had to get out of this place, my back hurting as well as my knees, headache was fast overtaking me, I turned towards the fields after climbing up the collapsed quarry onto level ground, there I caught sight of Sid my Engineer who was running fast towards the fields, Only two persons survived; my engineer Sid Witham and myself, we were the only two wearing parachutes at the time we were hit. However both of us were caught in the second and third waves. I found it better to lay on my back and watch the wave of sleek black bombs coming down than to lie on ones face and not know what was happening, watching this rain of bombs became almost fascinating the one nearest to me would penetrate deeply into the ground heave up the earth and me. The disorientation and pain got worse I tried to orient myself with the button compass and escape maps but could not see it clearly, the sun seemed too bright for me to see. Finally I gave up thinking the rest would put me right. The intermittent busting of the 500lb time delayed bombs shook me back to reality, two exploded a very short distance from me, they blew all the leaves off the small trees and bushes near me, pushed me several yards and covered me with earth. By dark I saw German troops and tracked vehicles moving Eastwards. across the other side of the road I saw a house and made up my mind. After another rest I would get there, as I could speak fluent French, I acted irrationally, approached some German soldiers and spoke to them asking the way to Creil. Some could speak French and asked me what I was doing out after curfew hours, I spun them a story about the damned English bombers that had caught me in the fields and that is why I had all this blood over my face, extraordinary thing was they never saw my pilots wings on my left chest or recognise the remnants of my uniform. they directed me but said I would not be allowed on the road until their columns had passed that took so long I lay down I the ditch and must have lost conscience again, for when I woke the place was quite except for men fixing the telephone wire, I did not cross the road fearing this was a trap. My engineer Sid did cross the road and was put up there and was later picked up by the advancing Americans. With all the confusions and losing consciousness I was later found and carried by German troops to an occupied house interigated before being sent to Sagan Stalag Luft III.

Sidney Witham's story can be found;
A2799273

(Sidney is now the sole surviving member of this Lancaster crew)

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