大象传媒

F/Lt Peter Baxter recounts a story from RAF Scampton in 1944...

RAF Scampton is situated on the A15 Ermine Street near Lincoln, and I had passed it several times on my travels from Hemswell. It was a peacetime station in the same mould as many others, with a few Nissen huts added which were used by the ancillary services arising from the wartime situation. To me it was a fine camp, undoubtedly the best one that I was stationed at, and had the glamour of a long operational tradition which was further enhanced by it being the home of the Dambusters who had made their epic raid eighteen months previously. The atmosphere was such that I felt very proud to be there, and when I arrived on the 14th October 1944, I was very much looking forward to my period of residence!

Apart from the flying aspect, the focal point of life on such a station was the Mess and one's living quarters, and I was not disappointed here for Scampton was well endowed in this respect. The Mess was very similar to the one at Hemswell, but the internal appointments were somewhat better, the ante-room looking very impressive with the walls covered by a large mural. There was a large fireplace at one end of the room, flanked by bookcases which constituted the officer's library, run by a member of the Messing Committee and open during the lunchtimes. The large central entrance doors gave into a spacious lobby which was frequented as much as the ante-room, mainly because of the inevitable piano situated there. I have always been fascinated by someone playing a piano, probably making up for not being able to perform myself, and I was found on numerous occasions sitting next to this one lapping up the music played by our resident pianists, be it good (or more usually) bad! Around the walls were oil paintings of men who had won the Victoria Cross while being stationed at Scampton - these were Sgt Hannah, F/Lt Learoyd and W/Cdr Gibson (of Dambusters fame); as I said, a place of tradition! Also in the lobby was a large wall map showing the war situation which was continuously updated each day, and also a book wherein officers were required to record their movements if they were away from camp for more than 24 hours. This book was mainly for the use of the catering staff in regard to meals, and for the Mess orderlies, in order to save them searching around for an officer who was away on leave!

Mention of the orderlies reminds me of their role as 'waker's up' of officers due to fly on operations, and their unfortunate duty of having to do the rounds when operations were cancelled. This happened to me at least once when I was woken up to hear that I need not get up after all! We appreciated that the reason for this was to avoid us waking up later and thinking that we had missed our date with destiny, but it was not accepted very well at the time! The bedrooms were of the standard pattern and I always occupied one in the upper storey, but owing to the continual comings and goings on the station I had a succession of room-mates, starting off with F/O Coxon, the 'A' Flight Commander's navigator, with whom I also later flew on my last bombing operation. The batting services were somewhat better than those described at Wickenby, but of course as there was no need to cart water all over the place, they had more time to clean buttons and press clothes! Batwomen had been introduced by this time, and they were present in about equal proportions with the men.

My terms of reference on 153 Squadron, apart from acting as Flight Engineer Leader, were to proceed with my second tour of operations. This I could only do at a rather leisurely pace as I had no fixed crew and was only able to fly in a spare capacity. In practice, this was no bad thing as it was much more preferable to the concentrated effort that characterised my first tour at Wickenby, but it did not mean that I could pick and choose which operations I flew on, for I could not suddenly displace a crew member when the occasion suited me. The usual arrangement when an engineer was unable to fly, mostly due to sickness, was for the 'official' spare engineer from another crew to take his place, which was normally a satisfactory move as the spare man was not averse to getting 'one more in' to hasten the end of his tour. The onus was on me of course, and if there was no spare available, I had to be prepared to step into the breech. In view of this, the fact that I only flew on four more bombing missions points to the extraordinary good health of my gallant band of engineers!

My department was housed in the first of a row of large Nissen huts behind one of the hangars, and my lads worked with a will to erect a partition across the hut to provide me with an office. Tables and chairs had to be scrounged, and in no time at all these appeared as from nowhere. Up went the noticeboard and the Lancaster fuel and hydraulic diagrams I had bought from Hemswell, and with the installation of the telephone we were ready for business. To provide some exercise and to try to avoid boredom during non-flying periods, we dug up a patch of land next to the hut and in the spring planted flowers in it. It became quite a showpiece, admired by all.

We could not practice dinghy drill as there were no baths at Scampton, but there was plenty of air there and we indulged in a fair amount of kite flying. Part of the survival kit for use in the case of ditching was a radio transmitter which was positioned near to the top escape hatch, and it was the engineer's responsibility to collect this on his way out together with the ration pack. The transmitter was shaped so that it could be held between the knees, and had a handle which was turned to produce the power required to send a simple signal giving the approximate position of the dinghy. Also necessary to the sending of this message was an aerial, and this is where the kite was required. A box kite was provided which could hoist the aerial up to a height of about fifty feet, but it needed a bit of experience to keep it up consistently, hence the reason for our practice sessions. It was the first time that I had handled a box kite and I was amazed at the ease with which it flew, although it was a bit tricky in a high wind. There were no complaints about the kite flying exercises, and if we practised a bit longer than was necessary, at least it kept a lot of minds off more foreboding matters.

Another item which took up some time was the reading of Station Flying Orders, which were amended from time to time and had to be read and signed by all crew personnel. These included the safe height to fly in the vicinity, knowledge of various landmarks, taxiing speeds and so-on. In addition to these matters there was always the ubiquitous Link Trainer to fly (I considered the use of the Link Trainer of great importance to engineers who might at any time be called upon to fly their aircraft, and kept a roster to ensure that everyone had their turn). I also encouraged my people to use the intelligence library which I had always thought to be most interesting and instructive to all would-be escapers!

The normal routine for new crew on the squadron was also adopted at Scampton. They flew at first on cross-country runs, and then the pilot flew his first operation as second dickey with an experienced crew. I normally attended the briefing for these trips, as well as operational ones, although I was only at debriefings for the latter. I bought a slide rule which I used for working out the air miles per gallon ratio, thereby making the calculation less laborious, and also enabling me to make an immediate assessment in the briefing room, so that I could strike while the iron was hot if necessary!

Five days after arrival at Scampton, on the 19th October, the squadron flew on its second operation when fifteen aircraft went to Bremen, and to show that nothing much had changed in the way of targets I will mention that the next two raids were both to Essen on the 23rd and 25th October! My first flight from Scampton was on operations, when, after having been briefed for two trips which had been cancelled, I finally took off on a sortie to Wanne Eickel, an industrial town three miles NNW of Bochum in Happy Valley. I joined Flying Officer White's crew for this trip on the 18th November, displacing Sgt Thompson who was on the sick list, and we flew in Lancaster 'W' William, appropriately numbered with my initials PB642.

I noticed several differences in comparison with my earlier operational experience, the first of which was the increased bomb load, made possible by a big improvement in the engine performance. Our load in this instance was 12,000lbs (nearly 5陆 tons), made up of one 4,000lb and 16 x 500lb High Explosive bombs. There was a difference to in the navigation equipment carried, for we now had H2S, an airborne radar set which showed a good outline of the territory flown over. On the outward leg, I had to drop bundles of 'window' through a small chute in the side of the aircraft; these were small strips of silvered paper which were dropped to confuse the enemy radar, as described when Slade had flown on the Hamburg raids from Wickenby. Over the months since this device had been started, the Germans had been forced to alter their tactics to counteract it, and had come up with two main methods. One of these was to concentrate the fighters over the target and silhouette the bombers by playing masses of searchlights on the cloud layer, and by dropping flares from high altitude aircraft above. This scheme was known as 'Wild Boar'. The other method, known as 'Tame Boar', was for fighters to infiltrate the bomber stream (easy to locate by the window being dropped!), and use their airborne radar to strike down individual bombers. On the outward journey, we had plenty of evidence to substantiate the use of these different tactics, particularly in respect of the flares dropped from on high which turned night-time into day, and in consequence we had to redouble our eternal vigilance! Luck was with us, for apart from the usual flak reception from nearby Essen, we had an untroubled bombing run followed by a patch of bad weather on the way back which helped to keep the fighters at bay. Approaching the English coast we flew through blinding rain storms, and once again the message came through for us to land at a diversionary aerodrome, but this time the situation was very different!

We were diverted to RAF Horham in East Anglia, about halfway between Ipswich and Norwich, and landed there at 2155 after being up for 6 hours. Although for official reasons Horham was an RAF station, it was actually operated by our American allies, and a squadron of Flying Fortresses was based there. About six Lancasters landed there with us, and our first priority was to ensure that the aircraft were safely housed for the night, but in reality there was little we could do except park on the tarmac with noses into wind and batten all the hatches. We were met by our American hosts with a fully upholstered coach and conveyed in comfort to the Administrative Block where debriefing took place, and then taken to the Mess kitchen for a meal. All ceremony was brushed to one side (I do not think there was much there anyway!), and we queued up by the stove upon which bacon and eggs were sizzling away; there was no restriction on quantity - we who were conditioned to a scarcity of eggs now saw them in volume, and the same applied to the bacon! Naturally we took advantage of this and fed our faces to the full, but more was to come. Fruit salad, again a scarce commodity, was the next item to appear, in huge canteens complete with ladle. "Help yourself bud" was the only instruction given, and of course we forced down a fair helping.

The next course was biscuits and cheese which hardly anyone could manage, and the whole feast was rounded up by a large box of cigars which were free to all! It so happened that an Officer's Mess dance had been arranged at Horham for that very same evening, and a coach had been sent to Norwich to collect some nurses and other female personnel to make up the party. We were invited to join in and so we did, with the CO granting an hour's extension in honour of the gallant British airmen (his words, not mine). I personally found it very difficult to dance in flying boots, and so did many others, with the result that most of us sat it out, not wishing to upset our hosts by leaving too early. It ended eventually, and we were honoured once more with a rendering of the National Anthem before gratefully retiring to our very comfortable beds.

I will make no comment on seeing the next morning that a fair proportion of the female contingent had somehow missed the bus back and were having breakfast with their escorts in the Mess, but for our part we were once more regaled with bacon and eggs and toast and coffee - almost three star treatment! An officer was assigned to escort us around the camp, which included a call at the PX (American NAAFI equivalent), where we stocked up with cigarettes, orange juice, soap and other items which were virtually unobtainable elsewhere. We then headed for the airfield. After storing the purchases in our own aircraft, we were shown around the Fortresses, which were examined with great interest, and I am bound to say that I was not over-impressed with what I saw. The bomb holds were pathetically small, and the aircraft itself looked like a great lumbering beast; in fact it all looked a bit futile. I have great admiration for the airmen that flew these aircraft in daylight over Germany, but although great improvements were made later on in the weight of bombs each aircraft could carry, especially with the advent of the SuperFortress, they never came within a whisker of our own splendid Lancasters.

After another first-class meal it was time for us to make our way back to Scampton. The Lancs had been refuelled, and it only remained for us to do our pre-flight checks, start up and taxi out, but we met a snag right at the beginning when an engine proved troublesome to start. The normal method of engine starting at our home base was to use an outside trolley accumulator to save the aircraft batteries. These trollies were available at this American station, but the connecting plugs were incompatible with the Lancaster sockets. So there was no alternative but to use the internal power. This procedure was a trial for me, because when the aircraft battery power was used the engines had to be well primed with fuel, and the priming pumps were situated in each inboard engine nacelle. This required me to clamber on to the top of the wheel amid all the dripping oil and glycol and pump away without having any direct contact with the cockpit. I also had the fear that someone would inadvertently operate the undercarriage retraction lever, in which case my future prospects would not be very bright!

We got the starboard outer started alright, but the inner one proved very stubborn, and by the time we managed to get it going, the other one had overheated and had to be shut off! Eventually the other three were ticking over and the starboard outer restarted, and we were ready to go. Our route to the runway took us past the control tower and someone had the bright idea that we might open the bomb doors in passing, hoping that the Yanks inside the tower would be very impressed with the large bomb-carrying capacity thus revealed. The doors were opened and we spoke to the tower on the intercom to draw their attention, but unfortunately our scheme backfired on us when, for the only time ever, the doors refused to close again! After passing by, there happened to be a convenient bend on the perimeter track out of sight of the tower, where we stopped and several of us ran out to shoulder the doors closed. How are the mighty fallen! All this delay caused the engines to overheat, and the outboard ones started to stream out glycol vapour. The correct procedure at this point would have been to shut them off to allow them to cool down, but we had had enough embarrassment by this time, and so tempting fate, took off with them likely to pack up at any moment! It was the first and only time I flew without doing the all-important runway checks, but under the circumstances who will blame us for this lapse in routine? Scampton was reached without further ado, and our total flying time was just over 6 hours.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.